THE  FORUM  EXHIBITION 
OF  MODERN  AMERICAN 
PAiNTERS 


I 


THE  FORUM  EXHIBITION  OF 
MODERN  AMERICAN 
PAINTERS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/forumexhibitionoOOande_0 


THE  FORUM  EXHIBITION 
OF  MODERN  AMERICAN 
PAINTERS 

MARCH  THIRTEENTH  TO  MARCH  TWENTY- FIFTH,  I916 


COMMITTEE 

DR.  CHRISTIAN  BRINTON  ALFRED  STIEGLITZ 

ROBERT  HENRI  DR.  JOHN  WEICHSEL 

W.  H.  DE  B.  NELSON      WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


ARTISTS 


BEN  BENN 

THOMAS  H.  BENTON 
OSCAR  BLUEMNER 
ANDREW  DASBURG 
ARTHUR  G.  DOVE 
MARSDEN  HARTLEY 
S.  MACDONALD-WRIGHT 


ALFRED  MAURER 
HENRY  L.  MCFEE 
GEORGE  F.  OF 
MAN  RAY 
MORGAN  RUSSELL 
CHARLES  SHEELER 
A.  WALKOWITZ 


JOHN  MARIN 


WM.  AND  MARGUERITE  ZORACH 


ON  VIEW  AT  THE  ANDERSON  GALLERIES 
FIFTEEN  EAST  FORTIETH  STREET,  NEW  YORK 


COPYRIGHT  I916  BY 
MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 


[ 


PRINTED  IN  AMERICA 


IN  EXPLANATION 


OBJECT 


HE  object  of  the  present  exhibition  is  to  put  before  the 


X  American  public  in  a  large  and  complete  manner  the 
very  best  examples  of  the  more  modern  American  art;  to  stimu- 
late interest  in  the  really  good  native  work  of  this  movement; 
to  present  for  the  first  time  a  comprehensive,  critical  selection 
of  the  serious  painting  now  being  shown  in  isolated  groups;  to 
turn  public  attention  for  the  moment  from  European  art  and 
concentrate  it  on  the  excellent  work  being  done  in  America ;  and 
to  bring  serious,  deserving  painters  in  direct  contact  with  the 
public  without  a  commercial  intermediary. 


Out  of  fifty  names  of  the  most  deserving  very  modern  Ameri- 
can painters,  the  Committee  has  selected  the  sixteen  names  here 
represented;  and  from  the  large  number  of  paintings  submitted, 
the  Committee  has  chosen  the  works  now  on  view.  Thus  not  only 
are  the  artists  chosen  for  their  merit,  but  the  works  also  repre- 
sent what,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Committee,  are  the  best  paintings 
of  each  artist. 


The  Forum  Committee  is  composed  of  six  men  actively  in- 
terested in  art — men  who  hold  high  positions  in  their  respective 
fields  in  America. 

Dr.  Christian  Brinton  has  for  many  years  been  one  of  the 
foremost  American  critics  and  lecturers  on  international  art. 
He  is  the  author  of  Modern  Artists,  Impressions  of  the  Art  at 
the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition,  and  many  other  works  on  paint- 
ing; he  is  Advisory  Editor  of  Art  in  America,  and  a  regular  con- 
tributor to  the  leading  art  journals. 

Robert  Henri  is  an  artist  of  international  reputation.  His 
paintings  are  represented  in  the  Luxembourg  Gallery,  the  Metro- 


SELECTION 


THE  COMMITTEE 


5 


6 


IN  EXPLANATION 


politan  Museum,  and  many  other  permanent  collections.  He 
is  a  member  of  the  National  Academy,  the  National  Institute 
of  Arts  and  Letters,  etc. 

W.  H.  de  B.  Nelson  is  the  editor  of  the  International  Studio; 
a  painter,  and  a  lecturer  on  art. 

Alfred  Stieglitz  is  the  editor  and  publisher  of  Camera  JVork, 
and  the  leading  spirit  of  "291."  At  291  Fifth  Avenue  the  pio- 
neer work  for  the  recognition  of  modern  art  in  America  was 
begun  in  1906. 

Dr.  John  Weichsel  is  the  President  of  the  People's  Art  Guild, 
the  largest  enterprise  of  its  kind  in  the  world. 

Willard  Huntington  Wright  is  the  art  critic  of  the  Forum, 
and  contributing  art  critic  of  the  International  Studio,  He  is 
the  author  of  Modern  Painting:  Its  Tendency  and  Meaning. 

The  Committee  have  no  financial  interest  whatever  in  this 
exhibition.  Their  services  have  been  given  free.  They  have 
been  animated  solely  by  the  desire  to  counteract  the  prevailing 
prejudices  against  modern  painting,  and  to  create  an  intelligent 
interest  in  deserving  artists. 

THE  BUYING  PUBLIC 

Art  collectors  have  always  been  afraid,  and  in  many  instances 
rightly  so,  to  purchase  the  new  works  of  modern  men.  Many 
charlatans  have  allied  themselves  with  the  movement;  and  be- 
cause the  movement  has  been  so  little  understood,  and  because 
the  commercial  element  has  entered  into  it  to  so  great  an  ex- 
tent, buyers  have  in  many  instances  been  unable  to  differentiate 
between  the  sincere  and  insincere. 

But  in  this  exhibition  a  careful  attempt  has  been  made  to 
eliminate  the  spurious  and  to  present  only  such  work  as  is  truly 
worth  while.  Every  painting  here  is,  after  a  fashion,  vouched 
for  by  men  whose  integrity  and  knowledge  of  art  are  beyond 
question. 

No  more  genuine  art  service  can  be  rendered,  either  to  your- 
self or  to  the  cause  of  serious  art  effort  in  America,  than  by  the 
purchase  of  these  works. 


CONTENTS 


WHAT  IS  MODERN   PAINTING?  WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


FOREWORD 
FOREWORD 
FOREWORD 
FOREWORD 
FOREWORD 
FOREWORD 

EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 
EXPLANATORY 


NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTE 
NOTC 
NOTE 
NOTE 


CHRISTIAN  BRINTON 

ROBERT  HENRI 

W.  H.  dE  B.  NELSON 

ALFRED  STIEGLITZ 

JOHN  WEICHSEL 

WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 

BEN  BENN 
THOMAS  H.  BENTON 
OSCAR  BLUEMNER 
ANDREW  DASBURG 
ARTHUR  G.  DOVE 
MARSDEN  HARTLEY 
S.  MACDONALD-WRIGHT 
JOHN  MARIN 
ALFRED  MAURER 
HENRY  L.  MCFEE 
GEORGE  F.  OF 
MAN  RAY 
MORGAN  RUSSELL 
CHARLES  SHEELER 
A.  WALKOWITZ 
WILLIAM  ZORACH 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


REPRODUCTIONS 


FIGURE 

FIGURE  ORGANIZATION  NO.  3 

EXPRESSIONS  OF  A  SILK  TOWN  IN  NEW  JERSEY 

IMPROVISATION 

NATURE  SYMBOLIZED 

MOVEMENT 

ORGANIZATION,  5 

LANDSCAPE 

LANDSCAPE 

STILL-LIFE 

THE  OLD  HOUSE 

INVENTION  ^DANCE 

COSMIC  SYNCHROMY 
LANDSCAPE  NO.  8 
NEW  YORK 
SPRING 


BEN  BENN 
THOMAS  H.  BENTON 
OSCAR  BLUEMNER 
ANDREW  DASBURG 
ARTHUR  G.  DOVE 
MARSDEN  HARTLEY 
S.  MACDONALD-WRIGHT 
JOHN  MARIN 
ALFRED  MAURER 
HENRY  L.  MCFEE 
GEORGE  F.  OF 
MAN  RAY 
MORGAN  RUSSELL 
CHARLES  SHEELER 
A.  WALKOWITZ 
WILLIAM  ZORACH 


WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 


WiLLARD  Huntington  Wright 

THROUGHOUT  the  entire  history  of  the  fine  arts,  no 
period  of  aesthetic  innovation  and  endeavor  has  suf- 
fered from  public  malignity,  ridicule  and  ignorance  as 
has  painting  during  the  last  century.  The  reasons  for  this  are 
many  and,  to  the  serious  student  of  art  history,  obvious.  The 
change  between  the  old  and  the  new  order  came  swiftly  and 
precipitously,  like  a  cataclysm  in  the  serenity  of  a  summer  night. 
The  classic  painters  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
such  as  David,  Ingres,  Gros  and  Gerard,  were  busy  with  their  re- 
habilitation of  ancient  traditions,  when  without  warning,  save  for 
the  pale  heresies  of  Constable,  a  new  and  rigorous  regime  was 
ushered  in.  It  was  Turner,  Delacroix,  Courbet  and  Daumier 
who  entered  the  sacred  temple,  tore  down  the  pillars  which  had 
supported  it  for  centuries,  and  brought  the  entire  structure  of 
established  values  crashing  down  about  them.  They  survived 
the  debacle,  and  when  eventually  they  laid  aside  their  brushes  for 
all  time  it  was  with  the  unassailable  knowledge  that  they  had 
accomplished  the  greatest  and  most  significant  metamorphosis  in 
the  history  of  any  art. 

But  even  these  hardy  anarchists  of  the  new  order  little 
dreamed  of  the  extremes  to  which  their  heresies  would  lead.  So 
precipitous  and  complex  has  been  the  evolution  of  modern  paint- 
ing that  few  of  the  most  revolutionary  moderns  have  succeeded 
in  keeping  mental  step  with  its  developments  and  divagations. 
During  the  past  few  years  new  modes  and  manners  in  art  have 
sprung  up  with  fungus-like  rapidity.  "  Movements "  and 
"schools"  have  followed  one  another  with  astounding  perti- 
nacity, each  claiming  that  finality  of  expression  which  is  the  aim 
of  all  seekers  for  truth.  And,  with  but  few  exceptions,  the  men 
who  have  instigated  these  innovations  have  been  animated  by  a 
serious  purpose — that  of  mastering  the  problem  of  aesthetic  or- 
ganization and  of  circumscribing  the  one  means  for  obtaining 
ultimate  and  indestructible  results.  But  the  problems  of  art,  like 
those  of  life  itself,  are  in  the  main  unsolvable,  and  art  must  ever 

13 


14  WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 


be  an  infinite  search  for  the  intractable.  Form  in  painting,  like 
the  eternal  readjustments  and  equilibria  of  life,  is  but  an  ap- 
proximation to  stability.  The  forces  in  all  art  are  the  forces  of 
life,  coordinated  and  organized.  No  plastic  form  can  exist  with- 
out rhythm :  not  rhythm  in  the  superficial  harmonic  sense,  but  the 
rhythm  which  underlies  the  great  fluctuating  and  equalizing  forces 
of  material  existence.  Such  rhythm  is  symmetry  in  movement. 
On  it  all  form,  both  in  art  and  life,  is  founded. 

Form  in  its  artistic  sense  has  four  interpretations.  First,  it 
exhibits  itself  as  shallow  imitation  of  the  surface  aspects  of  na- 
ture, as  in  the  work  of  such  men  as  Sargent,  SoroUa  and  Simon. 
Secondly,  it  contains  qualities  of  solidity  and  competent  construc- 
tion such  as  are  found  in  the  paintings  of  Velazquez,  Hogarth  and 
Degas.  Thirdly,  it  is  a  consummate  portrayal  of  objects  into 
which  arbitrary  arrangement  has  been  introduced  for  the  accen- 
tuation of  volume.  Raphael,  Poussin  and  Goya  exemplify  this 
expression  of  it.  Last,  form  reveals  itself,  not  as  an  objective 
thing,  but  as  an  abstract  phenomenon  capable  of  giving  the  sen- 
sation of  palpability.  All  great  art  falls  under  this  final  in- 
terpretation. But  form,  to  express  itself  aesthetically,  must  be 
composed;  and  here  we  touch  the  controlling  basis  of  all  art: — 
organization.  Organization  is  the  use  put  to  form  for  the  pro- 
duction of  rhythm.  The  first  step  in  this  process  is  the  construc- 
tion of  line,  line  being  the  direction  taken  by  one  or  more  forms. 
In  purely  decorative  rhythm  the  lines  flow  harmoniously  from 
side  to  side  and  from  top  to  bottom  on  a  given  surface.  In  the 
greatest  art  the  lines  are  bent  forward  and  backward  as  well  as 
laterally  so  that,  by  their  orientation  in  depth,  an  impression  of 
profundity  is  added  to  that  of  height  and  breadth.  Thus  the 
simple  image  of  decoration  is  destroyed,  and  a  microcosmos  is 
created  in  its  place.  Rhythm  then  becomes  the  inevitable  adjust- 
ment of  approaching  and  receding  lines,  so  that  they  will  repro- 
duce the  placements  and  displacements  to  be  found  in  the  human 
body  when  in  motion. 

To  understand,  and  hence  fully  to  appreciate,  a  painting,  we 
must  be  able  to  recognize  its  inherent  qualities  by  the  process  of 
intellectual  reasoning.  By  this  is  not  implied  mechanical  or  scien- 
tific observation.    Were  this  necessary,  art  would  resolve  itself 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT  15 

into  a  provable  theory  and  would  produce  in  us  only  such  mental 
pleasure  as  we  feel  before  a  perfect  piece  of  intricate  machinery. 
But  once  we  comprehend  those  constitutional  qualities  which 
pervade  all  great  works  of  art,  plastic  and  graphic,  the  sensuous 
emotion  will  follow  so  rapidly  as  to  give  the  effect  of  spontaneity. 
This  process  of  conscious  observation  in  time  becomes  automatic 
and  exerts  itself  on  every  work  of  art  we  inspect.  Once  adjusted 
to  an  assimilation  of  the  rhythmic  compositions  of  El  Greco  and 
Rubens,  we  have  become  susceptible  to  the  tactile  sensation  of 
form  in  all  painting.  And  this  subjective  emotion  is  keener  than 
the  superficial  sensation  aroused  by  the  prettiness  of  design,  the 
narrative  of  subject-matter,  or  the  quasi-realities  of  transcrip- 
tion. More  and  more  as  we  proximate  to  a  true  understanding 
of  the  principles  of  art,  shall  we  react  to  those  deeper  and  larger 
qualities  in  a  painting  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  its  docu- 
mentary and  technical  side.  Also  our  concern  with  the  transient 
sentiments  engendered  by  a  picture's  external  aspects  will  become 
less  and  less  significant.  Technique,  dramatic  feeling,  subject, 
and  even  acuracy  of  drawing,  will  be  relegated  to  the  subsidiary 
and  comparatively  unimportant  position  they  hold  in  relation  to 
a  painting's  esthetic  purpose. 

The  lack  of  comprehension — and  consequently  the  ridicule — 
which  has  met  the  efforts  of  modern  painters,  is  attributable  not 
alone  to  a  misunderstanding  of  their  seemingly  extravagant  and 
eccentric  mannerisms,  but  also  to  an  ignorance  of  the  basic  postu- 
lates of  all  great  art  both  ancient  and  modern.  Proof  of  this  is 
afforded  by  the  constant  statements  of  preference  for  the  least 
effectual  of  older  painters  over  the  greatest  of  the  moderns. 
These  preferences,  if  they  are  symptomatic  of  aught  save  the 
mere  habit  of  a  mind  immersed  in  tradition,  indicate  an  imma- 
turity of  artistic  judgment  which  places  prettiness  above  beauty, 
and  sentimentality  and  documentary  interest  above  subjectivity 
of  emotion.  The  fallacies  of  such  judgment  can  best  be  indicated 
by  a  parallel  consideration  of  painters  widely  separated  as  to 
merit,  but  in  whom  these  different  qualities  are  found.  For 
instance,  the  prettiness  of  Reynolds,  Greuze  and  Murillo  is  as 
marked  as  the  prettiness  of  Titian,  Giorgione  and  Renoir.  The 
latter  are  by  far  the  greater  artists ;  yet,  had  we  no  other  critical 


1 6  WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 


standard  save  that  of  charm,  the  difference  between  them  and  the 
others  would  be  indistinguishable.  Zuloaga,  Whistler,  Botticelli 
and  Bocklin  are  as  inspirational  of  sentiment  as  Tintoretto, 
Corot,  Raphael  and  Poussin;  but  by  no  authentic  criterion  are 
they  as  great  painters.  Again,  were  drama  and  simple  narrative 
aesthetic  considerations,  Regnault,  Brangwyn,  and  Antonio  Mo- 
lineri  would  rank  with  Valerio  Castello,  Rubens  and  Ribera. 

In  one's  failure  to  distinguish  between  the  apparent  and  the 
organic  purposes  of  art  lies  the  greatest  obstacle  to  an  apprecia- 
tion of  what  has  come  to  be  called  modern  painting.  The  truths 
of  modern  art  are  no  different  from  those  of  ancient  art.  A 
Cezanne  landscape  is  not  dissimilar  in  aim  to  an  El  Greco.  The 
one  is  merely  more  advanced  as  to  methods  than  the  other.  Nor 
do  the  canvases  of  the  most  ultra-modern  schools  strive  toward 
an  aesthetic  manifestation  radically  unlike  that  aspired  to  in 
Michelangelo's  Slaves.  Serious  modern  art,  despite  its  often 
formidable  and  bizarre  appearance,  is  only  a  striving  to  rehabili- 
tate the  natural  and  unalterable  principles  of  rhythmic  form  to 
be  found  in  the  old  masters,  and  to  translate  them  into  relative 
and  more  comprehensive  terms.  We  have  the  same  animating 
ideal  in  the  pictures  of  Giotto  and  Matisse,  Rembrandt  and 
Renoir,  Botticelli  and  Gauguin,  Watteau  and  Picasso,  Poussin 
and  Friesz,  Raphael  and  Severini.  The  later  men  differ  from 
their  antecedents  in  that  they  apply  new  and  more  vital  methods 
to  their  work.  Modern  art  is  the  logical  and  natural  outgrowth 
of  ancient  art;  it  is  the  art  of  yesterday  heightened  and  intensified 
as  the  result  of  systematic  and  painstaking  experimentation  in 
the  media  of  expression. 

The  search  for  composition — that  is,  for  perfectly  poised 
form  in  three  dimensions — has  been  the  impelling  dictate  of  all 
great  art.  Giotto,  El  Greco,  Masaccio,  Tintoretto  and  Rubens, 
the  greatest  of  all  the  old  painters,  strove  continually  to  attain 
form  as  an  abstract  emotional  force.  With  them  the  organiza- 
tion of  volumes  came  first.  The  picture  was  composed  as  to  line. 
Out  of  this  grew  the  subject-matter — a  demonstration  a  pos- 
teriori. The  human  figure  and  the  recognizable  natural  object 
were  only  auxiliaries,  never  the  sought-for  result.  In  all  this  they 
were  inherently  modern,  as  that  word  should  be  understood;  for 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


the  new  conception  of  art  strives  more  and  more  for  the  emotion 
rather  than  the  appearance  of  reality.  The  objects,  whether  ar- 
bitrary or  photographic,  which  an  artist  uses  in  a  picture  are  only 
the  material  through  which  plastic  form  finds  expression.  They 
are  the  means,  not  the  end.  If  in  the  works  of  truly  significant 
art  there  is  a  dramatic,  narrative  or  illustrative  interest,  it  will 
be  found  to  be  the  incidental  and  not  the  important  concomitant 
of  the  picture. 

Therefore  it  is  not  remarkable  that,  with  the  introduction  of 
new  methods,  the  illustrative  side  of  painting  should  tend  toward 
minimization.  The  elimination  of  all  the  superfluities  from  art 
is  but  a  part  of  the  striving  toward  defecation.  Since  the  true 
test  of  painting  lies  in  its  subjective  power,  modern  artists  have 
sought  to  divorce  their  work  from  all  considerations  other  than 
those  directly  allied  to  its  primary  function.  This  process  of 
separation  advanced  hand  in  hand  with  the  evolution  of  new 
methods.  First  it  took  the  form  of  the  distortion  of  natural 
objects.  The  accidental  shape  of  trees,  hills,  houses  and  even 
human  figures  was  altered  in  order  to  draw  them  into  the  exact 
form  demanded  by  the  picture's  composition.  Gradually,  by  the 
constant  practice  of  this  falsification,  objects  became  almost  un- 
recognizable. In  the  end  the  illustrative  obstacle  was  entirely 
done  away  with.  This  was  the  logical  outcome  of  the  sterilizing 
modern  process.  To  judge  a  picture  competently,  one  must  not 
consider  it  as  a  mere  depiction  of  life  or  as  an  anecdote :  one  must 
bring  to  it  an  intelligence  capable  of  grasping  a  complicated 
counterpoint.  The  attitude  of  even  such  men  as  Celesti,  Zanchi, 
Padovanino  and  Bononi  is  never  that  of  an  illustrator,  in  no 
matter  how  sublimated  a  sense,  but  of  a  composer  whose  aim  is 
to  create  a  polymorphic  conception  with  the  recognizable  ma- 
terials at  hand. 

Were  art  to  be  judged  from  the  pictorial  and  realistic  view- 
point we  might  find  many  meticulous  craftsmen  of  as  high  an 
objective  efficiency  as  were  the  men  who  stood  at  the  apex  of 
genuine  artistic  worth — that  is,  craftsmen  who  arrived  at  as  close 
and  exact  a  transcription  of  nature,  who  interpreted  current 
moods  and  mental  aspects  as  accurately,  and  who  set  forth  super- 
ficial emotions  as  dramatically.    Velazquez's  Philip  IV,  Titian's 


1 8  WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 


Emperor  Charles  V,  Holbein's  The  Ambassadors,  Guardi's  The 
Grand  Canal — Venice,  Mantegna's  The  Bead  Christ  and  Diirer's 
Four  Naked  Women  reproduce  their  subjects  with  as  much 
painstaking  exactitude  as  do  El  Greco's  Resurrection  of  Christ, 
Giotto's  Descent  from  the  Cross,  Masaccio's  Saint  Peter  Bap- 
tising the  Pagans,  Tintoretto's  The  Miracle  of  Saint  Mark, 
Michelangelo's  Creation  of  the  Sun  and  Moon,  and  Rubens's 
The  Earl  and  Countess  of  Arundel.  But  these  latter  pictures  are 
important  for  other  than  pictorial  reasons.  Primarily  they  are 
organizations,  and  as  such  they  are  of  aesthetic  value.  Only 
secondarily  are  they  to  be  appraised  as  representations  of  natural 
objects.  In  the  pictures  of  the  former  list  there  is  no  synthetic 
coordination  of  tactile  forms.  Such  paintings  represent  merely 
"  subject-matter "  treated  capably  and  effectively.  As  sheer 
painting  from  the  artisan's  standpoint  they  are  among  the  finest 
examples  of  technical  dexterity  in  art  history.  But  as  contri- 
butions to  the  development  of  a  pure  art  form  they  are  valueless. 

In  stating  that  the  moderns  have  changed  the  quality  and  not 
the  nature  of  art,  there  is  no  implication  that  in  many  instances 
the  great  men  of  the  past,  even  with  limited  means,  have  not 
surpassed  in  artistic  achievement  the  men  of  to-day  who  have  at 
hand  more  extensive  means.  Great  organizers  of  plastic  form 
have,  because  of  their  tremendous  power,  done  with  small  means 
more  masterly  work  than  lesser  men  with  large  means.  For 
instance,  Goya  as  an  artist  surpasses  Manet,  and  Rembrandt 
transcends  Daumier.  This  principle  holds  true  in  all  the  arts. 
Balzac,  ignorant  of  modern  literary  methods,  is  greater  than 
George  Moore,  a  master  of  modern  means.  And  Beethoven  still 
remains  the  colossal  figure  in  music,  despite  the  vastly  increased 
modern  scope  of  Richard  Strauss's  methods.  Methods  are  use- 
less without  the  creative  will.  But  granting  this  point  (which 
unconsciously  is  the  stumbling  block  of  nearly  all  modern  art 
critics),  new  and  fuller  means,  even  in  the  hands  of  inferior  men, 
are  not  the  proper  subject  for  ridicule. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  division  between  old  and 
modern  art  is  not  an  equal  one.  Modern  art  began  with  Dela- 
croix less  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  while  art  up  to  that  time  had 
many  centuries  in  which  to  perfect  the  possibilities  of  its  re- 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


sources.  The  new  methods  are  so  young  that  painters  have  not 
had  time  to  acquire  that  mastery  of  material  without  which  the 
highest  achievement  is  impossible.  Even  in  the  most  praise- 
worthy modern  art  we  are  conscious  of  that  intellectual  striving 
in  the  handling  of  new  tools  which  is  the  appanage  of  imma- 
turity. Renoir,  the  greatest  exponent  of  Impressionistic  means, 
found  his  artistic  stride  only  in  his  old  age,  after  a  long  and 
arduous  life  of  study  and  experimenting.  His  canvases  since 
1905  are  the  first  in  which  we  feel  the  fluency  and  power  which 
come  only  after  a  slow  and  sedulous  process  of  osmosis.  Com- 
pare, for  instance,  his  early  and  popular  Le  Moulin  de  la  Galette 
with  his  later  portraits,  such  as  Madame  T,  et  Son  Fils  and  Le 
Petit  Peintre,  and  his  growth  is  at  once  apparent. 

The  evolution  of  means  is  answerable  to  the  same  laws  as  the 
progressus  in  any  other  line  of  human  endeavor.  The  greatest 
artists  are  always  culminations  of  long  lines  of  experimentations. 
In  this  they  are  eclectic.  The  organization  of  observation  is  in 
itself  too  absorbing  a  labor  to  permit  of  a  free  exercise  of  the  will 
to  power.  The  blinding  burst  of  genius  at  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance  was  the  breaking  forth  of  the  accrued  power  of  gen- 
erations. Modern  art,  having  no  tradition  of  means,  has  sapped 
and  dispersed  the  vitality  of  its  exponents  by  imposing  upon  them 
the  necessity  for  empirical  research.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  we 
have  no  men  in  modern  art  who  approximate  as  closely  to  per- 
fection as  did  many  of  the  older  painters.  But  had  Rubens,  with 
his  colossal  vision,  had  access  to  modern  methods  his  work  would 
have  been  more  powerful  in  its  intensity  and  more  far-reaching 
in  its  scope. 

However,  in  the  brief  period  of  modern  art  two  decided 
epochs  have  been  brought  to  a  close  through  this  accumulation 
and  eruption  of  experimental  activities  in  individuals.  Renoir 
brought  to  a  focus  the  divergent  rays  of  his  predecessors,  and 
terminated  that  cycle  of  experimentation  and  research  which 
started  with  Delacroix,  Turner,  Constable,  Daumier  and  Cour- 
bet,  was  carried  forward  by  Manet,  developed  into  Impression- 
ism by  Monet,  Pissarro,  Sisley  and  Guillaumin,  and  was  later 
turned  into  scientific  channels  by  the  Neo-Impressionists,  Signac, 
Seurat  and  Cross.    Renoir  rejected  the  fallacies  of  these  earlier 


20  WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 


men  and  made  use  of  their  vital  discoveries,  coordinating  and 
rationalizing  them,  and  welding  them  into  definite  artistic  achieve- 
ments. The  second  modern  cycle  began  with  Cezanne.  Into  his 
canvases  he  incorporated  the  aspirations  and  accomplishments 
of  the  first  cycle,  and  applied  the  new  methods  to  the  expression 
of  the  rhythmic  laws  of  composition  and  organization  which  had 
been  established  by  the  old  masters.  He  was,  as  he  himself  said, 
the  "  primitive  "  of  this  new  epoch.  Henri-Matisse,  the  Cubists 
and  the  Futurists  in  turn  advanced  on  Cezanne's  procedure,  car- 
rying his  impetus  nearer  and  nearer  abstract  purity.  And  a  more 
recent  art  school,  Synchromism,  by  making  use  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  Cezanne,  Cubism  and  Michelangelo,  and  by  adding  to 
them  new  discoveries  in  the  dynamics  of  color,  has  opened  up  a 
new  vista  of  possibilities  in  the  expressing  of  aesthetic  form.  In 
this  last  school  was  completed  the  second  modern  cycle.  Once 
these  new  modes,  which  are  indicative  of  modern  art,  become 
understood  and  pass  into  the  common  property  of  the  younger 
men,  we  shall  have  achievement  which  will  be  as  complete  as 
the  masterpieces  of  old,  and  which  will,  in  addition,  be  more 
poignant. 

Although  the  methods  of  the  older  painters  were  more  re- 
stricted than  those  of  the  moderns,  the  actual  materials  at  their 
disposal  were  fully  as  extended  as  ours  of  to-day.  But  knowl- 
edge concerning  them  was  incomplete.  As  a  consequence,  all 
artists  antecedent  to  Delacroix  found  expression  only  in  those 
qualities  which  are  susceptible  to  reproduction  in  black  and  white. 
In  many  cases  the  sacrifice  of  color  enhances  the  intrinsic  merit 
of  such  reproductions,  for  often  the  characteristics  of  the  differ- 
ent colors  oppose  the  purposes  of  a  picture's  planes.  To-day  we 
know  that  certain  colors  are  opaque,  others  transparent;  some 
approach  the  eye,  others  recede.  But  the  ancients  were  ignorant 
of  these  things,  and  their  canvases  contained  many  contradictions : 
there  was  a  continuous  warring  between  linear  composition  and 
color  values.  They  painted  solids  violet,  and  transpicuous  planes 
yellow — thereby  unconsciously  defeating  their  own  ends,  for 
violet  is  limpid,  and  yellow  tangible.  In  one-tone  reproductions 
such  inconsistencies  are  eliminated,  and  the  signification  of  the 
picture  thereby  clarified.    It  was  Rubens  who  embodied  the  de- 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


fined  attributes  of  ancient  art  in  their  highest  degree  of  pliability, 
and  who  carried  the  impulse  toward  creation  to  a  point  of  com- 
plexity unattained  by  any  other  of  the  older  men.  In  him  we  see 
the  cuhnination  of  the  evolution  of  linear  development  of  light 
and  dark.  From  his  time  to  the  accession  of  the  moderns  the 
ability  to  organize  was  on  the  decrease.  There  was  a  weakening 
of  perception,  a  decline  of  the  aesthetic  faculty.  The  chaotic 
condition  of  this  period  was  like  the  darkness  which  always 
broods  over  the  world  before  some  cleansing  force  sweeps  it 
clean  and  ushers  in  a  new  and  greater  cycle. 

The  period  of  advancement  of  these  old  methods  extends 
from  prehistoric  times  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
On  the  walls  of  the  caverns  in  Altamira  and  the  Dordogne  are 
drawings  of  mammoths,  horses  and  bison  in  which,  despite  the 
absence  of  details,  the  actual  approach  to  nature  is  at  times  more 
sure  and  masterly  than  in  the  paintings  of  such  highly  cultured 
men  as  Botticelli  and  Pisanello.  The  action  in  some  of  them  is 
pronounced;  and  the  vision,  while  simple,  is  that  of  men  conscious 
of  a  need  for  compactness  and  balance.  Here  the  art  is  simply 
one  of  outline,  heavy  and  prominent  at  times,  light  and  almost 
indistinguishable  at  others ;  but  this  grading  of  line  was  the  result 
of  a  deeper  cause  than  a  tool  slipping  or  refusing  to  mark.  It 
was  the  consequence  of  a  need  for  rhythm  which  could  be  obtained 
only  by  the  accentuation  of  parts.  The  drawings  were  generally 
single  figures,  and  rarely  were  more  than  two  conceived  as  an 
inseparable  design.  Later,  the  early  primitives  used  symmetrical 
groupings  for  the  same  purpose  of  interior  decorating.  Then 
came  simple  balance,  the  shifting  and  disguise  of  symmetry,  and 
with  it  a  nearer  approach  to  the  imprevu  of  nature.  This  style 
was  employed  for  many  generations  until  the  great  step  was  taken 
which  brought  about  the  Renaissance.  The  sequential  aspect  of 
line  appeared,  permitting  of  rhythm  and  demanding  organization. 
Cimabue  and  Giotto  were  the  most  prominent  exponents  of  this 
advance.  From  that  time  forward  the  emotion  derived  from 
actual  form  was  looked  upon  by  artists  as  a  necessary  adjunct 
to  a  picture.  With  this  attitude  came  the  aristocracy  of  vision 
and  the  abrogation  of  painting  as  mere  exalted  craftsmanship. 

After  that  the  evolution  of  art  was  rapid.   In  the  contempla- 


22  WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 

tion  of  solidly  and  justly  painted  figures  the  artist  began  to  extend 
his  mind  into  space  and  to  use  rhythm  of  line  that  he  might  ex- 
press himself  in  depth  as  well  as  surfacely.  Thus  he  preconized 
organization  in  three  dimensions,  and  by  so  doing  opened  the 
door  of  an  infinity  of  aesthetic  ramifications.  From  the  begin- 
ning, tone  balance — that  is,  the  agreeable  distribution  of  blacks, 
whites  and  greys — had  gone  forward  with  the  development  of 
line,  so  that  with  the  advent  of  depth  in  painting  the  arrangement 
of  tones  became  the  medium  through  which  all  the  other  qualities 
were  made  manifest. 

In  the  strict  sense,  the  art  of  painting  up  to  a  hundred  years 
ago  had  been  only  drawing.  Color  was  used  only  for  orna- 
mental or  dramatic  purposes.  After  the  first  simple  copying  of 
nature's  tints  in  a  wholly  restricted  manner,  the  use  of  color  ad- 
vanced but  little.  It  progressed  toward  harmony,  but  its  dra- 
matic possibilities  were  only  dimly  felt.  Consequently  its  primi- 
tive employment  for  the  enhancement  of  the  decorative  side  of 
painting  was  adhered  to.  This  was  not  because  the  older  painters  . 
were  without  the  necessary  pigments.  Their  colors  in  many 
instances  were  brighter  and  more  permanent  than  ours.  But 
they  were  satisfied  with  the  effects  obtained  from  black-and-white 
expression.  They  looked  upon  color  as  a  delicacy,  an  accessory, 
something  to  be  taken  as  the  gourmet  takes  dessert.  Its  true  sig- 
nificance was  thus  obscured  beneath  the  artists'  complacency.  As 
great  an  artist  as  Giorgione  considered  it  from  the  conventional 
viewpoint,  and  never  attempted  to  deviate  toward  its  profounder 
meanings.  The  old  masters  filled  their  canvases  with  shadows 
and  light  without  suspecting  that  light  itself  is  simply  another 
name  for  color. 

The  history  of  modern  art  is  broadly  the  history  of  the 
development  of  form  by  the  means  of  color — that  is  to  say,  mod- 
ern art  tends  toward  the  purification  of  painting.  Color  is  cap- 
able of  producing  all  the  effects  possible  to  black  and  white,  and 
in  addition  of  exciting  an  emotion  more  acute.  It  was  only  with 
the  advent  of  Delacroix,  the  first  great  modern,  that  the  dramatic 
qualities  of  color  were  intelligently  sensed.  But  even  with  him 
the  conception  was  so  slight  that  the  effects  he  attained  were  but 
meagrely  effective.   After  Delacroix  further  experiments  in  color 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


led  to  the  realistic  translation  of  certain  phases  of  nature.  The 
old  static  system  of  copying  trees  in  green,  shadows  in  black  and 
skies  in  blue  did  not,  as  was  commonly  believed,  produce  realism. 
While  superficially  nature  appeared  in  the  colors  indicated,  a 
close  observation  later  revealed  the  fact  that  a  green  tree  in  any 
light  comprises  a  diversity  of  colors,  that  all  sunlit  skies  have  a 
residue  of  yellow,  and  hence  that  shadows  are  violet  rather  than 
black.  This  newly  unearthed  realism  of  light  became  the  battle 
cry  of  the  younger  men  in  the  late  decades  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, and  reached  parturition  in  the  movement  erroneously  called 
Impressionism,  a  word  philologically  opposed  to  the  thing  it 
wished  to  elucidate.  The  ancients  had  painted  landscape  as  it 
appeared  broadly  at  first  glance.  The  Impressionists,  being 
interested  in  nature  as  a  manifestation  in  which  light  plays  the 
all-important  part,  transferred  it  bodily  onto  canvas  from  that 
point  of  view. 

Cezanne,  looking  into  their  habits  more  coolly,  saw  their 
restrictions.  While  achieving  all  their  atmospheric  aims,  he  went 
deeper  into  the  mechanics  of  color,  and  with  this  knowledge 
achieved  form  as  well  as  light.  This  was  another  step  forward 
in  the  development  of  modern  methods.  With  him  color  began 
to  near  its  true  and  ultimate  significance  as  a  functioning  element. 
Later,  with  the  aid  of  the  scientists,  Chevreul,  Superville,  Helm- 
holtz  and  Rood,  other  artists  made  various  departures  into  the 
field  of  color,  but  their  enterprises  were  failures.  Then  came 
Matisse,  who  made  improvements  on  the  harmonic  side  of  color. 
But  because  he  ignored  the  profounder  lessons  of  Cezanne  he 
succeeded  only  in  the  fabrication  of  a  highly  organized  decorative 
art.  Not  until  the  advent  of  the  Synchromists,  whose  first  public 
exhibition  took  place  in  Munich  in  19 13,  were  any  further  crucial 
advances  made.  These  artists  completed  Cezanne  in  that  they 
rationalized  his  dimly  foreshadowed  precepts. 

To  understand  the  basic  significance  of  painting  it  is  necessary 
to  revise  our  method  of  judgment.  As  yet  no  aesthetician  has 
recorded  a  rationale  for  art  valuation.  Taine  put  forth  many 
illuminating  suggestions  regarding  the  fundamentals  of  form,  but 
the  critics  have  paid  scant  heed.  Prejudice,  personal  taste,  meta- 
physics and  even  the  predilections  of  sentiment,  still  govern  the 


24  WHAT  IS  MODERN  PAINTING? 

world's  judgments  and  appreciations.  We  are  slaves  to  accuracy 
of  delineation,  to  prettiness  of  design,  to  the  whole  suite  of  ma- 
terial considerations  which  are  deputies  to  the  organic  and  intel- 
lectual qualities  of  a  work  of  art.  It  is  the  common  thing  to  find 
criticisms — even  from  the  highest  sources — which  praise  or  con- 
demn a  picture  according  to  the  nearness  of  its  approach  to  the 
reality  of  its  subject.  Such  observations  are  confusing  and  ir- 
relevant. Were  realism  the  object  of  art,  painting  would  always 
be  infinitely  inferior  to  life — a  mere  simulacrum  of  our  daily 
existence,  ever  inadequate  in  its  illusion.  The  moment  we  attach 
other  than  purely  aesthetic  values  to  paintings — either  ancient  or 
modern — we  are  confronted  by  so  extensive  and  differentiated  a 
set  of  tests  that  chaos  or  error  is  unavoidable.  In  the  end  we 
shall  find  that  our  conclusions  have  their  premises,  not  in  the 
work  of  art  itself,  but  in  personal  and  extraneous  considerations. 
A  picture  to  be  a  great  work  of  art  need  not  contain  any  recog- 
nizable objects.  Provided  it  gives  the  sensation  of  rhythmically 
balanced  form  in  three  dimensions,  it  will  have  accomplished  all 
that  the  greatest  masters  of  art  have  ever  striven  for. 

Once  we  divest  ourselves  of  traditional  integuments,  modern 
painting  will  straightway  lose  its  mystery.  Despite  the  many 
charlatans  who  clothe  their  aberrations  with  its  name,  it  is  a 
sincere  reaching  forth  of  the  creative  will  to  find  a  medium  by 
which  the  highest  emotions  may  most  perfectly  be  expressed.  We 
have  become  too  complex  to  enjoy  the  simple  theatre  any  more. 
Our  minds  call  for  a  more  forceful  emotion  than  the  simple  imi- 
tation of  life  can  give.  We  require  problems,  inspirations,  in- 
centives to  thought.  The  simple  melody  of  many  of  the  old 
masters  can  no  longer  interest  us  because  of  its  very  simplicity. 
As  the  complicated  and  organized  forces  of  life  become  compre- 
hensible to  us,  we  shall  demand  more  and  more  that  our  analytic 
intelligences  be  mirrored  in  our  enjoyments. 


FOREWORDS 

CHRISTIAN  BRINTON 

ROBERT  HENRI 

W.  H.  DE  B.  NELSON 

ALFRED  STIEGLITZ 

JOHN  WEICHSEL 

WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT 


FOREWORD:  BY  CHRISTIAN  BRINTON 


IT  is  the  contention  of  certain  conservative,  not  to  say  con- 
gested, individuals  that  the  European  war  has  killed  the  new 
art.  They  repeat  the  assertion  with  an  air  of  exultant  confidence. 
Painters  and  public  alike,  they  aver,  will  eagerly  revert,  once  the 
current  cataclysm  has  passed,  to  those  comforting  conventions 
which  even  they  have  been  forced  to  admit  were  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  swept  aside.  It  is  obvious  that  such  an  atti- 
tude is  not  alone  reactionary  but  cowardly.  It  is  indeed  a  mere 
pitiful  catching  at  the  last  fugitive  straws  that  might  save  them 
from  final  submergence.  In  point  of  fact  the  war  has  in  no  sense 
extinguished  the  new  art,  nor  could  such  possibly  prove  to  be 
the  case.  Though  a  number  of  painters,  sculptors,  and  archi- 
tects have  perforce  turned  to  sterner  tasks,  the  principles  upon 
which  aesthetic  progress  is  based  will  survive,  and  will  in  due 
course  take  on  fresh  vigor  and  significance. 

A  singular  lack  of  perspective  characterizes  those  who  assume 
that  the  changes  which  have  lately  taken  place  in  the  province  of 
graphic  and  plastic  production  are  of  recent  origin.  Opponents 
of  the  new  movement  are  in  the  habit  of  charging  that  it  is  a 
purely  superficial  and  sporadic  aberration  which  sprang  into 
being  overnight  as  it  were.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from 
fact.  It  is  not  Henri-Matisse  whom  we  must  thank  for  the  pres- 
ent simplification  of  form  and  cult  of  flat  color,  nor  can  Manet 
be  accurately  described  as  the  pioneer  Expressionist.  There  were 
apostles  of  voluminal  integrity  before  Cezanne,  classicists  im- 
bued with  archaic  ardor  before  Gauguin  went  to  Tahiti,  and 
restless  Gothic  souls  before  Vincent  forsook  the  grey  mists  of 
Flanders  for  the  burning  solar  ecstasy  of  Aries.  The  modern 
movement  is,  it  must  ever  be  borne  in  mind,  not  a  revolution,  but 
the  result  of  a  more  deliberate  and  definitive  process  of  social  as 
well  as  aesthetic  evolution. 

Unwelcome  as  the  idea  may  prove  in  certain  quarters,  it  is 
an  indisputable  fact  that  most  phases  of  artistic  expression  were 
never  meant  to  survive  as  creative  impulses  for  more  than  a 
single  generation.  They  may  succeed  in  placing  themselves  upon 
permanent  record,  their  influence  may  endure  for  centuries,  yet 

27 


28 


FOREWORD 


no  matter  how  patent  their  truth  and  potenqr  they  do  not  merit 
the  compliment  of  imitation  or  duplication.  Avowedly  to  espouse 
at  this  date  the  classic  point  of  view,  the  rococo  point  of  view, 
or  the  flamboyant  fervor  of  romanticism  is  to  prove  one's  timidity 
and  infertility  of  endowment.  That  which  we  cherish  most  of 
all  in  a  work  of  art  is  the  accent  of  its  particular  day  and  epoch. 
No  purely  technical  achievement  can  compensate  for  the  loss 
of  this  precious  impress.  And  no  artist  out  of  sympathy  with 
the  psychology  of  his  age  can  attain  convincing  self-expression. 

It  is  superfluous  here  to  offer  an  apologia  for  a  phase  of  art 
which  is  to-day  manifesting  itself  in  such  stimulating  force  and 
variety.  To  many  it  seems  confused  and  inconclusive,  yet  it 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  all  this  work  is  the  outcome  of 
identical  causes.  Art  in  its  initial  stages  never  was,  and  was 
never  meant  to  be,  merely  imitative.  It  was  an  indication,  rather 
than  an  imitation.  As  man  however  grew  more  adept  and  less 
imaginative,  a  gradual  process  of  substitution  took  place.  We 
were  in  due  course  given  what  was,  as  nearly  as  human  ingenuity 
could  fashion  it,  the  actual  object  rather  than  its  infinitely  more 
suggestive  sign  or  symbol.  This  debased  and  spiritually  defunct 
form  of  illusionism,  of  trivial,  trompe  Vosil  industry,  has  indeed 
been  carried  so  far  that  the  general  public,  and  most  of  the 
artists  themselves,  have  lost  sight  of  the  primary  significance 
of  aesthetic  production.  We  have  so  long  been  taught  that  the 
chief  function  of  art  was  to  make  a  thing  look  as  much  as  possible 
like  itself  that  we  have  supinely  accepted  this  uninspired  view- 
point. 

That  there  should  have  been  periodic  protests  against  this 
wholesale  prostitution  of  the  higher  possibilities  of  artistic  ex- 
pression was  inevitable.  You  may  cite  El  Greco  as  a  case  in 
point,  and  you  may  mention  Cezanne  in  the  same  connection,  but 
never  before  in  the  annals  of  art  has  there  been  anything  com- 
parable to  the  widespread  readjustment  of  aim  and  purpose  which 
characterizes  present-day  effort.  Everywhere  are  young  men, 
and  those  not  too  decrepit  to  admit  of  growth  and  change, 
striking  out  along  kindred  lines.  These  several  groups  may  give 
themselves  abstruse  and  unfamiliar  names,  yet  their  work  itself 
presents  an  aspect  of  convincing  unity.    They  are  one  and  all 


CHRISTIAN  BRINTON 


29 


striving  to  attain  virtually  the  same  end.  They  are  seeking 
freedom  from  convention  and  the  cant  of  academic  dogma.  The 
latitude  of  idiom  may  be  considerable,  but  the  language  they  are 
struggling  to  enunciate  is  one  of  salutary  independence  and  indi- 
viduality. 

Whether  or  not  the  new  movement  has  thus  far  produced 
anything  of  clarity  or  significance  is  a  matter  for  the  general  pub- 
lic to  determine.  If  the  public  in  any  substantial  degree  endorses 
this  work,  the  battle  for  recognition  will  obviously  be  won.  It 
is  however  necessary,  in  confronting  such  relatively  advanced 
manifestations,  to  realize  that  these  canvases  portray  not  specific 
objects  but  various  states  of  creative  consciousness  as  induced 
by  certain  given  combinations  plastic,  chromatic,  or  linear.  Ab- 
stract in  spirit,  they  represent  a  series  to  aesthetic  reactions 
more  complex  than  any  hitherto  encountered  upon  exhibition 
wall,  and  yet,  as  it  will  possibly  be  seen,  not  less  legitimate  in 
appeal. 

It  is  absurd  to  accuse  a  large  majority  of  the  younger  painters 
of  the  day  and  not  a  few  among  their  elders  of  stark  madness 
or  wilful  perversity.  One  must,  in  all  justice,  recognize  the 
sincerity  of  the  new  art  and  strive  to  comprehend  its  already 
considerable  achievement.  Should  its  exponents  not  succeed  in 
placing  to  their  credit  anything  approximating  the  sovereign 
surety  of  a  masterpiece,  they  will  at  least  have  done  much.  They 
will  have  proved  that  painting  is  not  a  sterile  pastime,  but  a 
form  of  activity  animated  by  the  spirit  of  an  always  aspiring 
unrest. 


FOREWORD:  BY  ROBERT  HENRI 


I AM  interested  in  this  exhibition  because  I  believe  that  it  is 
better  to  see  the  works  than  to  read  what  is  written  about 
them. 

I  believe  in  the  development  of  individual  criticism  and 
appreciation. 

I  am  so  much  interested  in  the  development  of  individual 
judgment,  believe  so  much  in  the  necessity  of  individual  judgment 
to  the  growth  and  pleasure  of  the  individual,  that  I  stand  opposed 
to  the  finality  of  practically  all  art  criticism  and  feel  disposed  to 
defend  the  picture  against  the  critic  whether  he  praises  or  whether 
he  condemns. 

The  defence  can  only  be  made  by  putting  the  pictures  them- 
selves fairly  before  the  public. 

I  have  long  advocated  the  establishment  of  galleries  where 
small  groups  of  artists,  self-selected  and  self-organized,  might 
have  space  on  demand  to  present  their  works  for  public  inspec- 
tion, where  the  people  would  be  invited  to  come,  see,  and  in  the 
act  of  personal  judgment  develop  the  taste  that  is  latent  in  them, 
rather  than  accept  the  dictates  of  those  who  have  assumed 
authority  as  juries  of  admission,  juries  of  award,  and  critics. 

I  have  no  objection  to  the  most  liberal  expression  of  opin- 
ion. I  grant  the  critic  his  right  to  glorify  or  condemn,  to  announce 
his  finalities  and  establish  his  standards  of  taste;  to  tell  us  as 
is  so  often  his  wont  just  who  is  the  greatest  artist  and  which  is 
his  best  work  and  which  is  the  best  stroke  on  the  work.  It's  his 
right  and  his  pleasure.  The  more  positive  he  is  in  his  opinions 
the  more  interesting  and  perhaps  the  more  instructive  he  is,  pro- 
vided, however,  we  are  not  swept  away  from  our  own  judgment 
by  the  force  of  his  edicts  and  his  air  of  finality. 

Of  this  I  am  certain,  taste  cannot  be  standardized  and  for 
the  reason  that  artists,  who  are  interested  in  the  pursuit  of  funda- 
mental principles,  have  taken  different  roads.  All  art  that  is 
worth  while  is  a  record  of  intense  life  and  each  individual  artist's 
work  is  a  record  of  his  special  effort,  search,  and  findings  in  lan- 
guage especially  chosen  by  himself  and  devised  best  to  express 
him,  and  the  significance  of  his  work  can  only  be  understood  by 

30 


ROBERT  HENRI  31 

careful  study;  no  crack-judgment,  looking  for  the  expected,  will 
do,  nor  can  we  be  informed  by  the  best  critic,  for  appreciation 
is  individual,  differs  with  each  individual  and  is  an  act  of  crea- 
tion based  on  the  picture  which  is  an  organization,  not  a  mirror 
of  the  artist's  vision;  but  the  essential  principle  of  it,  and  there- 
fore of  basic  value  to  the  creative  impulse  in  the  spectator. 

I  do  not  refer  especially  to  the  so-called  modern  art  in  this. 
It  is  true  of  all  art  whether  old  or  new.  All  interesting  develop- 
ments in  art  have  at  first  puzzled  the  public,  and  the  best  appre- 
ciators  have  had  to  suspend  judgment  during  the  period  neces- 
sary for  full  consideration. 

As  to  my  impression  of  the  works  in  the  present  exhibition, 
I  will  simply  say  that  I  like,  enjoy  and  receive  inspiration  from 
many  of  them.  I  like  many  different  kinds  of  painting,  I  like 
men  best  when  they  differ  from  each  other  and  carry  each  one  a 
note  special  to  himself.  I  value  the  effect  of  these  new  notes  on 
myself.    I  believe  in  constant  revaluation. 

To  appreciate  and  get  a  great  deal  from  a  work  of  art  does 
not  mean  to  find  the  expected  in  it,  nor  does  it  mean,  necessarily 
to  accept  or  follow  it  wholly,  in  part,  or  at  all.  Every  work  is 
one  man's  vision,  an  outside  experience,  useful  to  us  in  our  own 
constructions.  The  wisdom  and  the  mistakes  of  the  past  are  ours 
to  build  on,  and  the  picture  painted  yesterday,  now  hanging  on 
the  wall,  is  already  of  the  past  and  is  a  part  of  our  heritage. 

I  regard  the  battlers  for  ideas  and  the  builders  of  new  roads 
with  enthusiasm  and  reverence.  Their  works  (the  record  of 
their  struggles  and  findings)  are  things  to  watch  and  to  cherish. 
This  is  the  way  I  feel  about  the  works  of  serious  men  whether 
they  be  of  the  past  or  of  to-day. 

I  am  not  interested  in  any  one  school  or  movement,  nor  do  I 
care  for  art  as  art.  I  am  interested  in  life.  The  most  we  can 
desire  of  men  is  that  they  be  master  of  such  as  they  have,  and 
then  we  should  be  highly  satisfied  with  them,  and  regard  them 
as  neither  less  nor  greater  than  any.    Place  them  as  themselves. 

I  claim  for  each  one  free  speech,  free  hearing.  I  am  inter- 
ested in  the  open  forum,  open  for  every  man  to  come  with  his 
word  and  for  every  man  to  come  to  hear  the  evidence,  unticketed, 
unprejudiced  by  jury  or  critic. 


3a 


FOREWORD 


I  am  opposed  to  any  man  or  any  body  of  men  who  assume 
the  authority  to  pick,  choose,  and  settle  the  question  of  what  is 
good.  I  am  opposed  to  an  art  jury  when  I  am  serving  on  it.  I 
seek  to  destroy  it  by  presenting  at  the  time  as  far  as  I  can  my 
reasons  to  the  reasoning  minds  of  my  fellows. 

In  all  progress  I  believe  that  each  man  picks  up  the  line  of 
human  development  where  he  will  and  carries  it  where  he  will. 
He  makes  his  record  in  flats  or  in  solids,  with  whatever  forms 
he  chooses.  His  work  is  his  evidence.  If  it  is  as  strong  as  he  is 
and  as  weak  as  he  is,  it  is  one  man's  truthful  record  and  as  such 
it  is  good. 


FOREWORD :  BY  W.  H.  de  B.  NELSON 


RECENTLY  at  a  theatrical  performance  a  gentleman  widely 
known  as  a  comic  singer  had  been  invited  to  fill  out  a  pause, 
and  according  to  preconceived  ideas  he  should  in  bounden  duty- 
have  conformed  with  his  custom,  but  he  didn't.  He  selected  a 
very  sentimental  song  hallowed  by  Hayden  Coffin  entitled  "  Sun- 
shine Above."  The  house  commenced  to  smile  before  he  had 
sung  a  bar,  and  by  the  end  of  the  first  stanza  was  convulsed  with 
merriment.  The  violated  feelings  of  the  performer  matter 
nothing.  What  does,  however,  matter  is  that  the  public  insists 
on  being  spoon-fed.  Convention  has  ever  been  the  antagonist  of 
truth.  We  love,  honor  and  obey  conventions  because  we  are  so 
desperately  afraid  of  truth.  To  arrive  at  the  truth  of  things 
demands  a  certain  amount  of  thought;  it  also  calls  for  sacrifice. 
We  have  to  divest  ourselves  of  the  warm  wraps  of  tradition  and 
actually  face  in  our  nakedness  new  conditions  which  we  find  diffi- 
cult to  understand.  We  go  to  hear  X  and  enjoy  his  fun.  By 
what  right  does  he  become  a  pervert  and  disturb  the  programme? 
We  go  to  laugh  and  we  intend  to  laugh  whatever  happens. 

As  in  life,  so  in  painting.  Whenever  a  current  of  art  has 
run  dry  and  some  innovator  in  his  insolence  has  attempted  to 
remove  obstacles  and  broaden  the  course,  the  fatuous  public  has 
always  greeted  such  efforts  with  guffaws.  From  Christ  to  Rodin 
the  experience  has  been  the  same.  It  is  not  customary  to  crucify 
an  artist  in  prescribed  fashion,  but  there  are  many  ways  of 
meting  out  a  similar  punishment.  Neglect  is  the  most  potent 
weapon  in  use ;  neglect  will  soon  reduce  its  victim  from  the  Wal- 
dorf to  the  Automat,  from  comfort  to  despair. 

The  battle  of  art  to-day  is  being  as  keenly  contested  as  any 
battle  in  Europe,  and  reputations,  if  not  men,  go  down  in  the 
process.  Since  1848  the  break  from  academic  methods  has  been 
gathering  in  intensity;  the  lifeless  amalgam  of  superb  draughts- 
manship is  all  the  time  yielding  more  and  more  to  the  living  action 
so  intensely  summoned  forth  by  the  so-called  impressionists.  It 
is  the  age  of  the  movie  picture.  So  many  currents  of  art  have 
been  dammed  and  damned  through  the  inability  of  present-day 
artists  to  equal  or  improve  upon  the  achievements  of  the  past  that 

33 


34 


FOREWORD 


of  necessity  new  currents  of  art  are  trickling  along  in  a  forma- 
tive state,  rivulets  striving  to  be  rivers. 

Every  one  recalls  the  Armory  Exhibition  which  was  at  once 
a  success  and  a  fiasco.  It  was  a  success  insomuch  as  it  compelled 
the  public  to  do  a  little  thinking  and  taught  that  same  public 
that  much  is  being  done  with  brush  and  chisel  of  a  totally  differ- 
ent character  to  what  the  American  galleries  and  exhibitions  have 
been  accustoming  us  for  many  a  decade.  It  was  a  fiasco  for  the 
reason  that  a  plethora  of  material  selected  at  haphazard  con- 
fused the  mind  and  failed  to  set  any  logical  standards  by  which 
modern  work  could  be  estimated.  People  laughed  or  tore  their 
hair  according  to  temperament.  The  Armory  exposition  ended, 
and  a  flabby,  conventional  verdict  declared  the  end  of  modern 
painting  in  New  York.  Verdicts,  however,  like  reputations,  are 
in  a  state  of  flux,  and  to-day  we  find  many  signs  that  modern 
painting,  far  from  emulating  that  extinct  bird,  the  dodo,  is  very 
much  alive  and  kicking.  Exhibitions  take  place  continually  about 
Fifth  Avenue  devoted  entirely  to  the  display  of  modern  work. 

A  reaction  has  set  in.  The  present  exhibition  is  an  honest 
effort  to  separate  the  wheat  from  the  tares,  to  show  a  repre- 
sentative group  of  the  best  work  of  some  twenty  sincere,  artists 
who  ask  for  no  favors  beyond  that  the  public  should  try  and 
see  eye  to  eye  with  them  and  approach  their  canvases  in  a  criti- 
cal spirit  free  from  prejudice  and  preformed  opinion.  In  fact, 
they  claim  an  impartial  hearing  like  any  other  prisoner  in  the 
dock. 


FOREWORD:  BY  ALFRED  STIEGLITZ 


THERE  never  has  been  more  art-talk  and  seeming  art-interest 
in  this  country  than  there  is  to-day.  In  my  mind  there  is 
the  constant  question :  Is  the  American  really  interested  in  paint- 
ing as  a  life  expression?  Is  he  really  interested  in  any  form  of 
art?  Twenty-five  years  of  concentrated  study  of  the  subject 
has  resulted  in  my  knowing  that  he  is  not.  There  may  be  a  few 
rare  exceptions. 

To  me  art  as  it  is  looked  upon  in  America  to-day  is  the 
equivalent  in  society  to  what  the  appendix  is  to  the  human 
body.  Scientists  are  still  differing  as  to  whether  the  appendix 
is  of  value  or  not  to  the  human  organism.  We  do  know  the 
human  being  can  enjoy  life  without  it. 

Granting  that  the  American  looks  upon  painting  as  a  necessary 
function  of  society,  I  feel  that  the  system  now  in  vogue  of 
bringing  the  public  into  contact  with  the  painting  of  to-day  is 
basically  wrong.  The  usual  exhibition  is  nothing  but  a  noise 
maker.  It  results  in  leading  people  away  from  the  unadulterated 
spirit.  It  does  not  do  what  it  is  professedly  to  do :  To  bring 
about  a  closer  Life  between  Expression  and  Individual. 

This  particular  exhibition  receives  my  co-operative  support 
because  the  men  represented  in  it  should  be  given  an  opportunity 
to  develop — to  continue  their  experiments.  To  me  many  of 
their  experiments  are  of  value  if  anything  in  American  painting 
is  of  consequence. 

No  public  can  help  the  artist  unless  it  has  become  conscious 
that  it  is  only  through  the  artist  that  it  is  helped  to  develop  itself. 
When  that  is  once  actually  understood,  felt,  art  in  this  country 
may  have  taken  root. 

The  practical  way  to  give  the  artist  the  opportunity  to  develop 
his  work  is  to  give  him  moral  support  backed  up  by  sufficient 
means  to  live  reasonably  decently. 

This  holds  good  for  all  other  workers  besides  artists. 


35 


FOREWORD:  BY  JOHN  WEICHSEL 


THE  Forum  Exhibition  is  not  a  bid  for  ordinary  art-patron- 
age.   It  is,  rather,  an  attempt  to  make  patronage  quite 
extraordinary:  to  make  it  constructive. 

There  is  a  traditional  aureole  around  art-patronage,  pre- 
sumably, an  emanation  of  inherent  virtues.  Whatever  these 
may  be,  constructiveness  is  not  one  of  them.  As  a  rule,  art- 
patronage  adds  weight  to  long-established  standards.  Most 
often,  it  crushes  art-growth  by  the  preponderance  it  gives  to 
dead  roots.  Only  the  "  recognized  "  art  is  the  object  of  ordinary 
patronage. 

Neither  can  it  be  claimed  for  the  usual  sort  of  art-patronage 
that  it  is  a  free  expression  of  individual  taste.  In  truth,  it  is  a 
docile  submission  to  imposed  notions  on  art-value,  invariably 
emanating  from  doubtful  aesthetic  understanding  and  doubtless 
mercenary  acumen.  To  the  same  sources  can  be  traced  the  cur- 
rent dislike  of  the  newer  art.  As  a  matter  of  self-preservation, 
the  "authorities"  whose  claim  to  esteem  (and  remuneration) 
stands  and  falls  with  their  obsolete  standards,  must  trample  down 
all  new  outcroppings  in  the  field  of  art.  But  the  most  sinister 
effect  of  reactionary  machinations  is  evident  in  the  prevailing 
overestimation  of  classical  art.  Misled  by  the  pompous  authority 
of  irresponsible  theorizers,  beguiled  by  the  inflated  prices  of  the 
speculators,  deceived  by  the  persistent  clamor  of  didactic  quacks, 
art-patronage  has  come  to  be  a  reckless  expenditure  of  fabulous 
wealth  and  priceless  enthusiasm  upon  an  unparalleled  indulgence 
in  sterile  ancestor-worship  and  traditional  superstition,  which 
inflict  irreparable  injury  on  our  living  day. 

I  believe  it  to  be  the  most  important  duty  of  the  art-world 
to  stop  the  despoilation  of  our  day  in  the  name  of  past  glories. 
Hence  I  welcome  the  Forum  Exhibition  of  modern  art  as  a 
means  of  restoring  to  our  generation  its  rightful  share  of  ma- 
terial and  spiritual  sustenance.  I  see  in  the  work  of  the  Forum 
Committee  a  strong  protest  against  the  customary  blinding  of 
our  vision  by  everlasting  flaunting  before  our  eyes  the  over- 
furbished  halo  of  traditional  art.  And  I  hope  that  this  will  lead 
to  a  general  exposure  of  the  fallacy  of  feeding  a  growing  life 

36 


JOHN  WEICHSEL 


37 


on  the  congealed  froth  of  past  ages.  Meanwhile,  I  am  looking 
forward  to  a  successful  launching  of  this  timely  movement  in  the 
Forum  Exhibition.  This  enterprise  of  Mr.  Willard  Huntington 
Wright,  while  not  as  complete  as  the  leisurely  prepared  repeti- 
tions of  it  are  bound  to  be,  is  starting  most  auspiciously,  Mr. 
Wright  having  enlisted  for  his  scheme  the  co-operation  of  the 
Anderson  Galleries — the  focus  of  mighty  potentialities. 

To  initiate  the  retrieval  of  patronage  for  the  benefit  of  up- 
to-date  art  expression,  the  Forum  Committee  have  gathered  to- 
gether the  best  available  portion  of  distinctly  modern  art.  The 
Committee  have  undertaken  to  free  this  art  from  the  undeserved 
odium  thrown  upon  it  by  prejudice  and  ignorance.  The  very 
headway  made  by  this  advanced  art,  removed  it  from  the  sus- 
taining companionship  of  unprejudiced  art-lovers.  The  very 
progress  it  has  achieved,  discredited  it  in  the  eyes  of  the  stagnant 
conventionalists.  The  new  truths  it  has  revealed,  brought  con- 
demnation from  those  who  can  see  no  truth  beyond  their  own 
catechism. 

The  new  art  was  branded  as  bereft  of  primary  aesthetic 
principles.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  neither  overlooked  nor  ex- 
cluded anything  in  the  cardinal  stock  of  art-creation.  It  has 
turned  the  light  of  scientific  research  on  the  conventional  equip- 
ment of  art.  It  has  set  its  mind  on  all-inclusion  rather  than 
exclusion.  It  has  made  careful  and  prolific  use  of  the  principles 
of  color-harmony,  line-rhythm,  space-division,  mass-balance.  But 
it  refused  to  acquiesce  in  the  traditionally  approved  imposture — 
the  investiture  of  these  forms  of  expression  with  the  dignity  of 
noumenons.  It  is  obvious  to  an  unbiased  eye  that  the  maker 
of  the  newest  art  is  willing  to  employ  the  customary  modes  of 
expression  in  the  same  measure  in  which  a  poet  employs  the 
language-elements  in  his  poetry,  cadences,  words,  accents,  rhymes, 
etc.  Still,  the  new  artist  is  unwilling  to  be  a  draughtsman  or  a 
painter  or  a  modeller.  Just  so  is  a  poet  unwilling  to  be  merely  a 
rhymester.  Indeed,  while  bringing  drawing,  modelling  and  paint- 
ing to  a  higher  state  of  perfection  in  the  many  variegated  proc- 
esses, from  Impressionism  to  Cubism,  Post-Impressionism  and 
Synchromism,  modern  art  avowedly  seeks  to  pass  beyond  good 
drawing,  good  modelling,  good  painting,  and  other  forms  of  ex- 


38 


FOREWORD 


pression.  It  seeks  to  penetrate  into  the  realm  of  "  pure  art, 
although  it  does  not  discard  the  unavoidable  forms  of  expression 
which  conventional  notion  accepts  as  adequate  ends  of  art.  Mod- 
ern art  adopts  these  forms  as  the  raw  material  for  the  building 
of  a  masterpiece,  as  ordered  sensations  gleaned  by  an  artist  from 
experience  for  the  purpose  of  transmutation  by  the  process  of 
art.  The  ordered  sensations  are  the  common  stock  of  human 
intelligence.  One  might  say,  they  are  the  legal  tender  in  the 
graphic  business.  Only  in  an  artist's  grasp,  these  sensory  seizures 
of  reality  become  the  medium  for  an  intensely  personal  annunci- 
ation. In  fine,  as  far  as  is  discernible  at  this  stage  of  its  evolu- 
tion, the  latest  art  aims  at  being  in  the  plastic  realm  what 
poetry  is  in  the  verbal,  and  music  in  the  tonal  world :  a  sublime 
psychic  entity  incarnate. 

Surely,  no  one  ever  approached  art  with  greater  reverence 
and  qualification.  The  accusation  of  insufficient  professional 
schooling  is  a  malicious  invention  that  is  easily  refuted  by  the 
ample  evidence  of  aesthetic  merit  in  the  composition  of  the  ad- 
vanced works  of  art.  Their  purely  decorative  value — whatever 
the  appeal  of  their  content — will  not  fail  eventually  to  secure  for 
them  an  honored  place  in  art-collections.  They  will  be  cherished 
as  earnest  attempts  to  do  justice  to  the  profundity  of  modern 
mentality  and  social  complexity.  They  will  command  respect 
as  valuable  essays,  deeply  conceived  and  carried  out  with  intense 
feeling,  with  external  charm  and  inner  beauty. 

The  Forum  Exhibition  is  dedicated  to  this  superior  art  and, 
through  it,  to  the  high  mission  of  which  the  new  art  is  a  living 
token :  the  lifting  of  creativeness  in  art  above  dulling  rut,  debasing 
imitation,  puerile  stunt  and  technical  futility.  ...  It  is  a  privi- 
lege of  discerning  art-lovers  to  share  in  this  creative  task  by 
granting  their  active  sympathies  to  the  cause  of  living  art. 


FOREWORD :  BY  WILLARD  HUNTING- 
TON WRIGHT 

THE  pictures  in  the  present  exhibition  are  adequately  repre- 
sentative of  the  best  work  being  done  by  the  modern  men  in 
America.  There  is  not  a  painting  here  which  is  not  a  genuine 
and  sincere  effort  on  the  part  of  a  conscientious  artist  to  express 
some  vital  idea  in  the  realm  of  the  new  aesthetics.  Not  one  man 
represented  in  this  exhibition  is  either  a  charlatan  or  a  maniac; 
and  there  is  not  a  picture  here  which,  in  the  light  of  the  new  ideal, 
is  not  intelligible  and  logically  constructed  in  accordance  with 
the  subtler  and  more  complex  creative  spirit  which  is  now  ani- 
mating the  world  of  art. 

It  is  true  that  there  are  a  great  many  insincere  men  allied  with 
the  new  movement — men  who  have  fallen  in  line  for  commercial 
reasons  and  whose  productions  are  worthless  and  discreditable. 
The  public  misunderstanding  of  modern  art  is  due  largely  to  the 
fact  that  in  America  there  have  been  few  critics  who  have  con- 
scientiously pointed  the  way.  Our  art  writers  for  the  most  part 
have  refused  to  give  the  matter  any  study,  finding  it  less  arduous 
and  more  popular  to  condemn  all  work  which  has  had  an  aspect 
of  newness.  Also  in  the  matter  of  exhibitions  the  public  has  been 
led  astray.  Insincere  and  insignificant  modern  painters  have 
been  exposed  and  held  up  as  representative,  while  the  truly  de- 
serving artists  have  received  little  or  no  publicity.  When  any 
large  exhibition — such  as  the  Armory  show — has  been  presented 
to  the  public,  the  good  has  been  mixed  indiscriminately  with  the 
bad:  there  has  been  no  attempt  at  differentiation;  and  the  public, 
confused  and  misled,  has  fallen  back  on  ridicule  and  condemned 
modern  art  as  a  whole. 

In  the  present  exhibition  pains  have  been  taken  to  include 
only  that  which  is  deserving  and  sincere  and  significant.  To  ridi- 
cule the  pictures  here  on  view  can  be  only  a  confession  of  ignor- 
ance. All  new  excursions  into  the  field  of  knowledge  have  been 
met  with  ridicule;  but,  despite  that  ridicule,  the  new  has  persisted, 
in  time  becoming  the  old  and  accepted.  Throughout  the  entire 
evolution  of  painting  this  has  been  the  case.  But  no  one  laughs 
any  more  at  Monet,  Pissarro,  Manet,  Dagas  and  Renoir,  al- 

39 


40 


FOREWORD 


though  there  was  a  time  when  each  of  these  painters  was  con- 
fronted with  jibes  and  sneers. 

I  sincerely  believe  that  the  pictures  shown  in  this  exhibition 
will  endure — that  the  day  will  come  when  they  will  not  seem 
bizarre  and  incomprehensible ;  and  I  further  beHeve  that  if  those 
persons  who  are  sincerely  interested  in  painting  will  strive  con- 
scientiously to  find  their  way  into  this  new  territory,  instead  of 
scoffing  and  refusing  to  follow  the  artist  in  his  complicated 
efforts,  they  will  in  time  arrive  at  a  comprehension  of  this  new 
work. 

Modern  painting  is  not  a  fad:  it  is  not  a  transient  aspect  of 
art.  Beginning  with  Constable,  Turner,  Delacroix,  Daumier 
and  Courbet,  it  has  progressed  and  developed  logically  for  a 
century.  It  is  a  direct  result  of  ancient  art.  Basically  the  new 
men  are  striving  for  nothing  more  than  that  for  which  the  older 
men  strove;  their  methods  and  processes,  however,  are  not  so 
obvious ;  and  herein  lies  the  difficulty  of  understanding  them. 

But  bear  this  in  mind: — the  enduring  qualities  of  the  older 
paintings — that  is  to  say,  those  qualities  which  give  them  an 
aesthetic  emotion  and  make  one  old  master  greater  than  another 
— are  the  precise  qualities  which  are  to  be  found  in  all  significant 
modern  paintings.  The  unessentials  have,  in  large  part,  been 
eliminated.  And,  in  addition,  there  have  been  advances  made 
in  the  means  and  methods  of  painting.  Everyone  knows,  for 
instance,  that  of  two  different  Renaissance  paintings  of  a  Ma- 
donna and  Child,  one  may  be  a  great  piece  of  art  while  the  other 
may  be  artistically  worthless.  It  is  neither  the  subject-matter 
nor  the  painter's  approximation  to  nature  which  makes  his  work 
great:  it  is  the  inherent  aesthetic  quaHties  of  order,  rhythm,  com- 
position and  form. 

Now,  the  modern  men,  in  the  main,  are  striving  to  divest 
these  fundamental  qualities  of  all  superficial  matter,  to  state  them 
purely  and,  by  so  doing,  to  increase  the  emotional  reaction  of  the 
picture.  True,  it  is  difficult  for  the  average  untutored  spectator 
to  recognize  these  qualities  without  the  intermediary  of  recog- 
nizable objectivity.  But  once  he  has  adjusted  his  vision,  he  will 
find  that  the  pleasure  he  derives  from  modern  painting  will  more 


WILLARD  HUNTINGTON  WRIGHT  41 

than  compensate  him  from  the  intellectual  effort  he  must  exert 
before  he  can  understand  it. 

Therefore,  instead  of  dismissing  the  new  work  as  incompre- 
hensible and  meaningless,  let  everyone  who  is  interested  in 
progress  and  intellectual  effort  try  to  find  the  beauty  which  is 
here  manifest.  It  is  not  a  new  beauty,  but  an  old  beauty  purified 
and  given  a  new  investiture.  Only  reactionary  and  static  minds 
scoff  antagonistically  at  the  new  and  the  strange.  Every  day 
intelligent  men  and  women  are  coming  in  touch  with  the  new 
vision  of  art.  You  yourself  can  find  that  vision  if  you  will  not 
attempt  to  approach  it  through  the  conventional  channels  of 
preconceived  ideas,  but  will  give  it  the  serious  critical  attention 
it  deserves.  Scoffing  and  indifference  will  injure  neither  the 
modem  artist  nor  his  work.  You  alone  will  be  the  loser,  for  you 
will  close  to  yourself  the  door  which  leads  to  the  highest  aesthetic 
emotion. 

The  pictures  here  shown  give  an  unusual  opportunity  for 
coming  into  touch  with  the  more  important  modern  American 
painters.  Each  painter  has  been  chosen  for  his  sincerity  and  for 
the  authority  which  attaches  to  his  work.  Likewise  the  paintings 
themselves  have  been  chosen  because  each  represents  a  definite 
attainment  in  the  new  field  of  aesthetic  endeavor.  You  need  have 
no  fear  as  to  the  genuine  merit  of  every  picture  hung.  The 
Committee,  which  is  responsible  for  this  exhibition,  comprises 
men  of  varied  tastes — men  who  have  given  years  to  the  study  of 
art's  development  and  who  are  ready  to  vouch  for  the  worth  of 
every  canvas  present. 


EXPLANATORY  NOTES 


BEN  BENN 
THOMAS  H.  BENTON 
OSCAR  BLUEMNER 
ANDREW  DASBURG 
ARTHUR  G.  DOYE 
MARSDEN  HARTLEY 
S.  MACDONALD-WRIGHT 
JOHN  MARIN 
ALFRED  MAURER 
HENRY  L.  McFEE 
GEORGE  F.  OF 
MAN  RAY 
MORGAN  RUSSELL 
CHARLES  SHEELER 
A.  WALKOWITZ 
WILLIAM  ZORACH 


LIKE  most  students  I  was  first  attracted  to  groups  of  painters  rather 
than  artists.  The  actual  ability  to  paint  well  was  the  first  aim  of 
my  student  days.  From  an  admiration  of  Meissonier,  Bouguereau  and 
Gerome,  I  went  to  more  profound  men,  such  as  Rembrandt,  Van  Dyke, 
Teniers  and  still  later  to  the  Spaniards.  These  men  all  taught  me  the 
necessity  of  craft  mastery  and  the  love  of  the  actual  textural  surface  of  the 
canvas. 

Perhaps  it  was  the  tactilely  pleasing  surfaces  seen  in  the  Impressionists 
that  attracted  me  to  this  latter  metamorphosis.  Their  use  of  color  made 
the  achievement  of  divergency  of  material  more  extended,  which  diver- 
gency, I  hold,  is  absolutely  necessary  in  avoiding  monotony  of  uniform  sur- 
faces. 

Then  I  saw  the  modern  masters,  and  they,  more  than  the  old,  opened 
my  eyes  to  the  necessity  for  something  of  more  permanent  value — inter- 
dependence of  parts  (called  organization),  pattern  (the  just  disposition  of 
masses),  and  rhythm  to  unite  these  other  elements.  Indeed,  these  preoccu- 
pations I  deem  of  primary  importance,  and  I  believe  they  should  be  the 
first  consideration  of  the  creative  artist.  An  ability  to  master  them  is  what 
differentiates  the  great  art  of  the  past  and  present  from  the  merely  compe- 
tent. 

Color  should  be  used  always  harmoniously  to  give  to  the  spectator  what 
the  artist  has  felt  before  his  subject,  though  it  need  not  be  necessarily  a 
replica  of  this  subject. 

I  put  in  my  work  only  the  selected  essentials  of  my  inspiration,  desiring, 
above  all,  that  my  work  shall  be  direct.  This  I  try  to  obtain  by  continually 
editing  the  first  impression  until  I  feel  that  all  unessentials  have  been 
eliminated.  Ben  Benn. 


FIGURE 


BEN  BENN 


MY  experience  has  proved  the  impracticability  of  depending  upon  in- 
tellectualist  formulas  for  guidance,  and  I  find  it  therefore  impossi- 
ble to  ally  myself  definitely  with  any  particular  school  of  aesthetics, 
either  in  its  interpretative  or  constructive  aspects. 

I  may  speak  generally  of  my  aim  as  being  toward  the  achievement  of 
a  compact,  massive  and  rhythmical  composition  of  forms  in  which  the  tactile 
sensations  of  alternate  bulgings  and  recessions  shall  be  exactly  related  to 
the  force  of  the  line  limiting  the  space  in  which  these  activities  take  place. 
As  the  idea  of  form  cannot  be  grasped  without  mental  action  on  the  part  of 
the  beholder;  as  its  comprehension,  that  is,  implies  the  necessity  of  a  more 
intense  mental  state  than  is  requisite  for  the  enjoyment  of  simple  loveliness 
of  color,  I  value  its  development,  manipulation,  etc.,  as  by  far  the  most 
important  element  entering  into  the  construction  of  a  work  of  art. 

The  generation  of  the  idea  of  form  depends  upon  a  comparison  of  con- 
toural  or  linear  extensions,  their  force,  direction  and  the  like;  this  genera- 
tion is  caused  by  attention  to  boundaries  of  shapes ;  the  pre-eminent  stimulus 
to  realizing  a  cubic  existence  is  line — therefore  I  make  the  production  of 
interesting  line  relations  the  first  business  in  my  painting.  Color  I  use 
simply  to  reinforce  the  solidity  and  spacial  position  of  forms  predetermined 
by  line. 

I  believe  the  importance  of  drawing,  of  line,  cannot  be  overestimated, 
because  of  its  above-mentioned  control  of  the  idea  of  form,  and  I  believe 
that  no  loveliness  of  color  can  compensate  for  deficiency  in  this  respect. 
While  considering  color  of  secondary  constructive  importance,  I  realize, 
nevertheless,  its  value  in  heightening  the  intensity  of  volume,  and  am,  to 
a  certain  extent,  in  accordance  with  all  those  developments  which,  emanating 
from  Cezanne,  tend  to  accentuate  its  functioning  power. 

I  believe  that  particular  attention  to  consistency  in  method  is  bad,  and 
for  this  reason  employ  any  means  that  may  accentuate  or  lessen  the  emotive 
power  of  the  integral  parts  of  my  work. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  say  that  I  make  no  distinctions  as  to  the  value 
of  subject-matter.  I  believe  that  the  representation  of  objective  forms  and 
the  presentation  of  abstract  ideas  of  form  to  be  of  equal  artistic  value. 

Thomas  H,  Benton, 


NY  new  work  of  art  explains  and  reveals  itself  only  to  that  degree 


that  the  spectator  is  unprejudiced  and  receptive.    Indeed,  a  picture 


ought  not  to  be  and  cannot  be  fully  explained.  Rather  must  expla- 
nation needs  be  obscure,  so  that  the  spectator  may  try  to  explain  to  himself 
the  explanation  by  the  aid  of  the  pictures.  Then  these  will  the  sooner 
become  lucid  to  him. 

The  painter  to-day  as  formerly  in  an  ethical  sense  aims  at  a  liberation 
of  feelings.  Only  the  ideas  of  the  present  age  create  emotions  wanting 
liberation  through  expression  in  form  and  beauty  that  are  different  from 
those  of  the  past  and  are  more  varied;  because  man's  intellect  progresses, 
widens,  deepens.  Hence  the  arts  also  become  more  manifold  and  freer,  less 
bound  by  traditional  and  antiquating  points  of  view. 

Why  then  should  American  painting  be  limited  by  either  old  canons 
or  any  single  new  "  ism  "  ?  We  have  a  climate  and  a  mind  of  our  own, — 
greater  intellectual  freedom  demands  for  its  pictorial  expression  a  cor- 
responding freer  use  of  line,  form,  tone  and  color.  The  only  law  a  picture 
must  conform  to  is  that  which  it  carries  within  itself,  instead  of  submitting 
to  rules  from  without;  just  as  true  art  springs  from  within,  while  that 
which  is  caused  from  without  is  imitation. 

The  intensity  and  purity  of  this  character  of  modern  painting  is  greater 
than  it  was  in  by-gone  art,  so  that  we  have  even  come  to  speak  of  abstract 
painting.  Whatever  inner  impulse  we  address  towards  nature  is  abstract. 
Thus  a  landscape,  as  a  motive  for  expression,  undergoes  a  free  transforma- 
tion from  objective  reality  to  a  subjective  realization  of  personal  vision. 
Thus  the  forms,  tones,  colors  we  call  natural  are  so  changed  that  the  paint- 
ing harmoniously  corresponds  to  the  idea  by  which  it  is  inspired.  Any 
pictorial  idea  imposes  upon  the  process  of  transformation  only  one  law — 
that  of  harmony.  Hence  painting  may  be  as  varied  and  novel,  as  character- 
istic and  personal,  as  music  is :  free,  bound  only  to  its  own  inner  laws. 


Oscar  Bluemner, 


IN  these  pictures  my  intention  has  been  to  co-ordinate  color  and  contour 
into  a  phantastic  of  form  that  will  have  the  power  to  stimulate  one's 
sense  of  the  aesthetic  reality. 
In  my  use  of  color  I  aim  to  reinforce  the  sensation  of  light  and  dark, 
that  is,  to  develop  the  rhythm  to  and  from  the  eye  by  placing  on  the  canvas 
the  colors  which,  by  their  depressive  or  stimulating  qualities,  approach  or 
recede  in  accordance  with  the  forms  I  wish  to  approach  or  recede  in  the 
rhythmic  scheme  of  the  pictures.  Thus  the  movement  of  the  preconceived 
rhythm  is  intensified.  This  is  what  I  mean  by  co-ordinating  color  and 
contour. 

My  conception  of  rhythm  is  based  on  a  simple  tensional  contrast  of 
lines  which  will  give  the  sense  of  poise,  of  balanced  masses  which  in  them- 
selves constitute  an  interdependent  unity.  The  other  lines — the  minor 
rhythms — are  developed  from  the  original  lines:  they  supplement  and 
augment  the  first  simple  statement  of  the  rhythm,  and  are,  in  turn,  a  part 
of  the  original  rhythm,  partaking  of  its  character.  Like  leaves  thrown  in 
a  stream,  the  minor  rhythms  are  picked  up  by  the  central  current  and 
carried  forward  according  to  the  direction  of  that  current. 

I  diflFerentiate  the  aesthetic  reality  from  the  illustrative  reality.  In  the 
latter  it  is  necessary  to  represent  nature  as  a  series  of  recognizable  objects. 
But  in  the  former,  we  need  only  have  the  sense  or  emotion  of  objectivity. 
That  is  why  I  eliminate  the  recognizable  object.  When  the  spectator  sees 
in  a  picture  a  familiar  form,  he  has  associative  ideas  concerning  that  form 
which  may  be  at  variance  with  the  actual  relation  of  the  form  in  the  picture : 
it  becomes  a  barrier,  or  point  of  fixation,  standing  between  the  spectator  and 
the  meaning  of  the  work  of  art.  Therefore,  in  order  to  obtain  a  pure 
aesthetic  emotion,  based  alone  on  rhythm  and  form,  I  eliminated  all  those 
factors  which  might  detract  the  eye  and  interest  from  the  fundamental 
intention  of  the  picture. 

Andrew  Dasburg, 


IMPROVISATION 


ANDREW  DASBURG 


I SHOULD  like  to  enjoy  life  by  choosing  all  its  highest  instances,  to 
give  back  in  my  means  of  expression  all  that  it  gives  to  me:  to  give 
in  form  and  color  the  reaction  that  plastic  objects  and  sensations  of 
light  from  vi^ithin  and  vi^ithout  have  reflected  from  my  inner  consciousness. 
Theories  have  been  outgrov^n,  the  means  is  disappearing,  the  reality  of 
the  sensation  alone  remains.  It  is  that  in  its  essence  w^hich  I  wish  to  set 
down.  It  should  be  a  delightful  adventure.  My  wish  is  to  work  so  unas- 
sailably  that  one  could  let  one's  worst  instincts  go  unanalyzed,  not  to 
revolutionize  nor  to  reform,  but  to  enjoy  life  out  loud.  That  is  what  I  need 
and  indicates  my  direction. 

Arthur  G,  Dove. 


PERSONAL  quality,  separate,  related  to  nothing  so  much  as  to  itself, 
is  a  something  coming  to  us  with  real  freshness,  not  traversing  a 
variety  of  fashionable  formulas,  but  relying  only  upon  itself.  The 
artist  adds  something  minor  or  major  more  by  understanding  his  own 
medium  to  expression,  than  by  his  understanding  of  the  medium  or  methods 
of  those  utterly  divergent  from  him.  Characteristics  are  readily  imitable; 
substances  never;  likeness  cannot  be  actuality.  Pictural  notions  have  been 
supplanted  by  problem,  expression  by  research.  Artistry  is  valued  only  by 
intellectualism  with  which  it  has  not  much  in  common.  A  fixed  loathing 
of  the  imaginative  has  taken  place :  a  continual  searching  for,  or  hatred  of, 
subject-matter  is  habitual,  as  if  presence  or  absence  of  subject  were  a  cri- 
terion, or,  from  the  technical  point  of  view,  as  if  the  Cezannesque  touch, 
for  instance,  were  the  key  to  the  aesthetic  of  our  time,  or  the  method  of 
Picasso  the  clew  to  modernity. 

I  am  wondering  why  the  autographic  is  so  negligible,  why  the  individual 
has  ceased  to  register  himself — ^what  relates  to  him,  what  the  problematic 
for  itself  counts.  I  wonder  if  the  individual  psychology  of  El  Greco, 
Giotto  and  the  bushmen  had  nothing  to  do  with  their  idea  of  life,  of  nature, 
of  that  which  is  essential — whether  the  struggle  in  El  Greco  and  Cezanne, 
for  example,  had  not  more  to  do  in  creating  their  peculiar  individual  aesthe- 
tic than  any  ideas  they  may  have  had  as  to  the  pictural  problem.  It  is  this 
specialized  personal  signature  which  certainly  attracts  us  to  a  picture — 
the  autographic  aspect  or  the  dictographic.  That  which  is  expressed  in 
a  drawing  or  a  painting  is  certain  to  tell  who  is  its  creator.  Who  will  not, 
or  cannot,  find  that  quality  in  those  extraordinary  and  unexcelled  water- 
colors  of  Cezanne,  will  find  nothing  whatsoever  an5rwhere.  There  is  not 
a  trace  anywhere  in  them  of  struggle  to  problem :  they  are  expression  itself. 
He  has  expressed,  as  he  himself  has  said,  what  was  his  one  ambition — that 
which  exists  between  him  and  his  subject.  Every  painter  must  traverse 
for  himself  that  distance  from  Paris  to  Aix  or  from  Venice  to  Toledo. 
Expression  is  for  one  knowing  his  own  pivot.  Every  expressor  relates  solely 
to  himself — that  is  the  concern  of  the  individualist. 

It  will  be  seen  that  my  personal  wishes  lie  in  the  strictly  pictural  notion, 
having  observed  much  to  this  idea  in  the  kinetic  and  the  kaleidoscopic 
principles.  Objects  are  incidents:  as  apple  does  not  for  long  remain  an 
apple  if  one  has  the  concept.  Anything  is  therefore  pictural;  it  remains 
only  to  be  observed  and  considered.  All  expression  is  illustration — of 
something. 

Marsden  Hartley, 


MARSDEN  HARTLEY 


1 STRIVE  to  divest  my  art  of  all  anecdote  and  illustration,  and  to 
purify  it  to  the  point  where  the  emotions  of  the  spectator  will  be 
wholly  aesthetic,  as  when  listening  to  good  music. 
Since  plastic  form  is  the  basis  of  all  enduring  art,  and  since  the  creation 
of  intense  form  is  impossible  without  color,  I  first  determined,  by  years  of 
color  experimentation,  the  relative  spatial  relation  of  the  entire  color 
gamut.  By  placing  pure  colors  on  recognizable  forms  (that  is,  by  placing 
advancing  colors  on  advancing  objects,  and  retreating  colors  on  retreating 
objects),  I  found  that  such  colors  destroyed  the  sense  of  reality,  and  were 
in  turn  destroyed  by  the  illustrative  contour.  Thus,  I  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  color,  in  order  to  function  significantly,  must  be  used  as  an 
abstract  medium.  Otherwise  the  picture  appeared  to  me  merely  as  a  slight, 
lyrical  decoration. 

Having  always  been  more  profoundly  moved  by  pure  rhythmic  form 
(as  in  music)  than  by  associative  processes  (such  as  poetry  calls  up),  I 
cast  aside  as  nugatory  all  natural  representation  in  my  art.  However,  I 
still  adhered  to  the  fundamental  laws  of  composition  (placements  and 
displacements  of  mass  as  in  the  human  body  in  movement) ,  and  created  my 
pictures  by  means  of  color-form  which,  by  its  organization  in  three  dimen- 
sions, resulted  in  rhythm. 

Later,  recognizing  that  painting  may  extend  itself  into  time,  as  well 
as  being  a  simultaneous  presentation,  I  saw  the  necessity  for  a  formal 
climax  which,  though  being  ever  in  mind  as  the  final  point  of  consummation, 
would  serve  as  a  point  d'appui  from  which  the  eye  would  make  its  excursions 
into  the  ordered  complexities  of  the  picture's  rhythms.  Simultaneously  my 
inspiration  to  create  came  from  a  visualization  of  abstract  forces  inter- 
preted, through  color  juxtapositions,  into  terms  of  the  visual.  In  them 
was  always  a  goal  of  finality  which  perfectly  accorded  with  my  felt  need 
in  picture  construction. 

By  the  above  one  can  see  that  I  strive  to  make  my  art  bear  the  same 
relation  to  painting  that  polyphony  bears  to  music.  Illustrative  music  is 
a  thing  of  the  past:  it  has  become  abstract  and  purely  aesthetic,  dependent 
for  its  effect  upon  rhythm  and  form.  Painting,  certainly,  need  not  lag 
behind  music. 

S,  Macdonald'W right. 


ORGANIZATION,  5 


S.  MACDONALD-WRIGHT 


THESE  works  are  meant  as  constructed  expressions  of  the  inner  senses, 
responding  to  things  seen  and  felt.  One  responds  differently  toward 
different  things:  one  even  responds  differently  toward  the  same 
thing.   In  reality  it  is  the  same  thing  no  longer ;  you  are  in  a  different  mood, 
and  it  is  in  a  different  mood. 

If  you  follow  a  certain  path  you  come  to  a  something.  The  path  moves 
towards  direction,  and  if  you  follow  direction  you  come  to  the  something; 
and  the  path  also  is  through  something,  under  something  and  over  some- 
thing. And  these  somethings  you  either  respond  to  or  you  don't.  There 
are  great  movements  and  small  movements,  great  things  and  small  things — 
all  bearing  intimacy  in  their  separations  and  joinings.  In  all  things  there 
exists  the  central  power,  the  big  force,  the  big  movement ;  and  to  this  central 
power  all  the  smaller  factors  have  relation. 

Thus  it  is  in  life.  Life  is  like  a  path  which  one  follows.  All  things 
one  meets  are  relative  and  interdependent.  They  may  be  good  or  bad,  but 
they  are  never  perfect.  It  is  the  same  with  the  artist's  expression :  it,  too, 
may  be  good  or  bad,  but  it  is  never  perfect. 

However,  the  paths  and  the  factors  of  life  may  broaden.  They  may. 
become  more  and  more  revealing.  Some  may  travel  and  find,  others  may 
travel  and  never  find  the  things  relative  to  them.  Thus  the  journey  may 
be  sensed  or  not  sensed,  expressed  or  not  expressed. 

So,  in  all  human  consciousness  there  are  the  seekers  and  those  who  do 
not  seek,  the  finders  and  those  who  do  not  find. 

Coming  down  to  my  work,  you  have  these  pictures.  They  are  the 
products  of  a  seeker  or  a  finder,  or  of  a  man  who  neither  seeks  nor  finds. 

John  Marin. 


LANDSCAPE 


JOHN  MARIN 


M 


Y  main  concern  in  painting  is  the  beautiful  arrangement  of  color 
values— tiiat  is,  harmonized  masses  of  pigment,  more  or  less 

pure.  .   .  , 

For  this  reason,  it  is  impossible  to  present  an  exact  transcription  ot 
nature  for  the  color  masses  in  nature  are  broken  up  by  many  minute  color 
notes  which  tend  to  eliminate  the  mass  effect.  Consequently,  I  often  use 
the  dominating  color  in  a  natural  object,  and  ignore  the  minor  notes.  By 
this  process  the  natural  effect  is  retained,  and  at  the  same  time  the  picture 
becomes  a  color  entity  divorced  from  mere  representation:  and  I  have  ac- 
quired a  volume  of  color  which  will  take  its  place  in  the  conception  of  the 
picture.  This,  of  course,  would  be  lost  if  all  the  details  were  truthfuUy 
set  down:  the  many  inconsequent  aspects  of  an  object  would  detract  the 
eye  from  the  final  and  pure  effect  of  the  work. 

In  order  that  I  may  express  myself  through  the  medium  of  color  alone, 
I  have  eliminated,  as  far  as  possible,  the  sombre  effect  of  black  masses, 
and  have  keyed  my  pictures  in  a  high  articulation,  so  that  the  reaction  to 
them  will  be  immediate  and  at  the  same  time  joyous  and  understandable. 
Black,  I  believe,  has  a  deadening  effect  in  a  pure  color  gamut,  and  1  am 
uying  to  express  the  emotional  significance  of  a  scene  without  it,  for  pure 
colors  are  more  moving  than  black,  which  is  a  negation  of  color. 

It  is  necessary  for  art  to  differ  from  nature,  or  we  would  at  once  lose 
the  raison  d'etre  of  painting.  Perhaps  art  should  be  the  intensification  of 
nature;  at  least,  it  should  express  an  inherent  feeling  which  cannot  be 
obtained  from  nature  except  through  a  process  of  association.  Nature, 
as  we  all  know,  is  not  consciously  composed;  and  therefore  it  cannot  give 
us  a  pure  esthetic  emotion.  I  believe  that  the  artist  who  paints  before 
nature  should  order  his  canvases;  and  in  doing  this  he  is  unable  to  adhere 
exactly  to  the  scene  before  him.  The  principles  of  organization  and  form, 
which  animated  the  older  painters,  must  not  be  ignored.  They  form  the 
true  basis  for  artistic  appreciation.  But  the  modern  men  can  «ake  use 
of  these  principles  through  a  different  medium.   He  can  find  a  new  method 

"rhrartfeTmust  be  free  to  paint  his  effects.  Nature  must  not  bind  him, 
or  he  would  have  to  become  more  interested  in  the  subject-matter  before 
him  than  in  the  thing  he  feels  need  expression.  In  my  case  where  I  am 
interested  in  the  harmonic  relation  of  color  volumes,  I  consider  the  tonal 
values  first.  This  is  why  my  pictures  differ  from  the  scene  which  they 
might  seem  to  represent.  ^^^^^^  ^^^^^^ 


LANDSCAPE 


ALFRED  MAURER 


1AM  endeavoring,  by  analysis,  to  find  the  essential  planes  of  the  emo- 
tional form  of  my  motif,  and  to  realize  these  planes  by  right  placing 
of  color  and  line,  and  by  such  a  just  relation  of  shape  to  shape,  that 
the  canvas  vi^ill  be,  when  completed,  not  a  representation  of  many  objects 
interesting  in  themselves,  but  a  plastic  unit  expressive  of  my  understanding 
of  the  form-life  of  the  collection  of  objects. 

Henry  L.  McFee, 


STILL'LIFE 


HENRY  L.  MCFEE 


To  create  art  it  is  necessary  to  have  had  an  inspiration,  and  this  takes 
place  only  when  one  reacts  aesthetically  to  certain  groupings  of 
color  and  form.    Why  these  groupings  move  us  is  inexplicable, 
although  the  ability  to  translate  our  emotions  before  them  onto  a  canvas 
must  be  the  result  of  intelligence  in  the  painter.   Essaying  the  exact  repro- 
duction of  them  only  leads  to  an  inorganic  and  chaotic  mass  of  data. 

To  make  the  canvas  live  a  life  of  its  own,  irrespective  of  its  inspiration, 
is  my  aim;  and  this  can  only  be  accomplished  by  him  who  perceives  the 
causes  underlying  the  life  of  his  subject. 

When  I  go  to  the  museum  and  see  great  paintings,  I  forget  the  ma- 
terial things  which  they  represent.  It  is  not  the  appearance  of  external 
form  that  makes  great  art;  it  is  the  love  of  the  master  for  his  work  that 
speaks  to  me,  the  profundity  of  his  insight  into  the  philosophy  of  his  art 
which  is  synonymous  with  life  that  impresses  me.  It  is  a  quality,  a  force, 
akin  to  what  one  feels  in  listening  to  great  music,  which  touches  the  heart 
and  transports  the  soul,  but  which  in  its  ultimate  essence  cannot  be  defined 
— only  felt. 

Still  this  spirit  must  have  a  medium  of  conveyance  or  it  could  not  mani- 
fest itself  to  us,  and  that  vehicle  is  the  tangible  form  which  has  life,  the 
appearance  of  nature. 

The  problem  of  the  painter  is  to  convey  from  the  picture  to  the  spec- 
tator an  impression  analogous  to  the  one  he  received  from  nature,  plus  his 
own  temperamental  vision.  For  this  purpose  he  is  obliged,  at  least  to 
begin  with,  to  have  a  system  by  which  he  adapts  the  impression  from 
nature  to  the  materials  at  his  disposal.  When  he  has  mastered  his  personal 
means  he  becomes  unconscious  of  them. 

We  see  that  everything  in  nature  bears  a  relation  to  some  other  thing — 
no  effect  without  cause — an  elaborate  system  of  relations.  We  must  retain 
the  spirit  of  this  system  of  relations  in  our  picture  because*»it  corresponds 
to  the  unity  that  we  perceive  in  nature.  As  far  as  our  reason  permits,  every- 
thing is  planned  from  the  beginning.  The  greatest  art  was  produced  by  a 
great  love  of  creating  beauty — a  great  mind  and  a  great  sincerity. 

I  have  tried  to  solve  the  problem  of  producing  form  by  means  of  pure 
color,  my  ambition  being  to  create  a  thing  of  joy. 

George  F.  Of, 


THROUGHOUT  time  painting  has  alternately  been  put  to  the  service 
of  the  church,  the  state,  arms,  individual  patronage,  nature  appre- 
ciation, scientific  phenomena,  anecdote  and  decoration. 
But  all  the  marvelous  vi^orks  that  have  been  painted,  w^hatever  the 
sources  of  inspiration,  still  live  for  us  because  of  absolute  qualities  they 
possess  in  common. 

The  creative  force  and  the  expressiveness  of  painting  reside  materially 
in  the  color  and  texture  of  pigment,  in  the  possibilities  of  form  invention 
and  organization,  and  in  the  flat  plane  on  which  these  elements  are  brought 
to  play. 

The  artist  is  concerned  solely  with  linking  these  absolute  qualities 
directly  to  his  wit,  imagination  and  experience,  without  the  go-between  of 
a  "  subject."  Working  on  a  single  plane  as  the  instantaneously  visualizing 
factor,  he  realizes  his  mind  motives  and  physical  sensations  in  a  perma- 
nent and  universal  language  of  color,  texture  and  form  organization.  He 
uncovers  the  pure  plane  of  expression  that  has  so  long  been  hidden  by  the 
glazings  of  nature  imitation,  anecdote  and  the  other  popular  subjects. 

Accordingly  the  artistes  work  is  to  be  measured  by  the  vitality,  the 
invention  and  the  definiteness  and  conviction  of  purpose  within  its  own 
medium. 

Man  Ray, 


INVENTION — DANCE 


MAN  RAY 


MY  first  synchromies  represented  a  personal  manner  of  visualizing  by 
color  rhythms ;  hence  my  treatment  of  light  by  multiple  rainbow- 
like color-waves  which,  expanding  into  larger  undulations,  form 
the  general  composition. 

In  my  next  step  I  was  concerned  with  the  elimination  of  the  natural 
object  and  with  the  retention  of  color  rhythms.  An  example  of  this  period 
is  the  Cosmic  Synchromy.  The  principal  idea  in  this  canvas  is  a  spiralic 
plunge  into  space,  excited  and  quickened  by  appropriate  color  contrasts. 

In  my  latest  development  I  have  sought  a  "  form  "  which,  though  neces- 
sarily archaic,  would  be  fundamental  and  permit  of  steady  evolution,  in 
order  to  build  something  at  once  Dionysian  and  architectural  in  shape 
and  color. 

Furthermore  I  have  been  striving  for  a  greater  intensity  of  pictorial 
aspect.  In  the  Middle  Ages  cathedral  organs  were  louder  than  the  sounds 
then  heard  in  life ;  and  men  were  made  to  feel  the  order  in  nature  through 
the  dominating  ordered  notes  of  the  organ.  But  to-day  the  chaotic  sounds 
and  lights  in  our  daily  experience  are  intenser  than  those  in  art.  Therefore 
art  must  be  raised  to  the  highest  intensity  if  it  is  to  dominate  life  and 
give  us  a  sense  of  order. 

Much  has  been  said  concerning  the  role  of  intellect  in  painting.  Com- 
mon-sense teaches  that  the  mind's  analytic  and  synthetic  powers,  like  vigor- 
ous draughts  of  fresh  air,  kill  the  feeble  and  invigorate  the  strong.  The 
strong  assimilate  the  suggestions  of  reason  to  their  creative  reactions:  the 
feeble  superimpose  reason  on  their  pictures,  thus  petrifying  their  work  and 
robbing  it  of  any  organic  unity.  This  unity  is  a  necessity  to  all  great  art 
and  results  only  from  a  creative  vision  handling  the  whole  surface  with 
supple  control. 

I  infuse  my  own  vitality  into  my  work  by  means  of  my  sense  of  rela- 
tions and  adjustments.  The  difference  between  a  picture  produced  by 
precise  formulas  and  one  which  is  the  result  of  sensibilite,  is  the  difference 
between  a  mechanical  invention  and  a  living  organism. 

While  there  will  probably  always  be  illustrative  pictures,  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  this  century  may  see  the  flowering  of  a  new  art  of  forms  and 
colors  alone.  Personally,  I  believe  that  non-illustrative  painting  is  the 
purest  manner  of  aesthetic  expression,  and  that,  provided  the  basic  demands 
of  great  composition  are  adhered  to,  the  emotional  effect  will  be  even 
more  intense  than  if  there  was  present  the  obstacle  of  representation.  Color 
is  form;  and  in  my  attainment  of  abstract  form  I  use  those  colors  which 
optically  correspond  to  the  spatial  extension  of  the  forms  desired. 

Morgan  Russell. 


COSMIC  SYNCHROMY  MORGAN  RUSSELL 


I VENTURE  to  define  art  as  the  perception  through  our  sensibilities, 
more  or  less  guided  by  intellect,  of  universal  order  and  its  expression 
in  terms  more  directly  appealing  to  some  particular  phase  of  our 
sensibilities. 

The  highest  phase  of  spiritual  life  has  always  in  one  form  or  another 
implied  a  consciousness  of,  and,  in  its  greatest  moments,  a  contact  with, 
what  we  feel  to  be  the  profound  scheme,  system  or  order  underlying  the 
universe ;  call  it  harmonics  rhythm,  law,  fact,  God,  or  what  you  will. 

In  my  definition  I  used  the  expression  "  through  our  sensibilities  more 
or  less  guided  by  our  intellects,"  and  I  here  add  "less  rather  than  more," 
for  I  believe  that  human  intellect  is  far  less  profound  than  human  sen- 
sibility; that  every  thought  is  the  mere  shadow  of  some  emotion  which 
casts  it. 

Plastic  art  I  feel  to  be  the  perception  of  order  in  the  visual  world 
(this  point  I  do  not  insist  upon)  and  its  expression  in  purely  plastic  terms 
(this  point  I  absolutely  insist  upon).  So  that  whatever  problem  may  be 
at  any  time  any  particular  artist's  point  of  departure  for  creative  aesthetic 
endeavor,  or  whatever  may  be  his  means  of  solving  his  particular  problem, 
there  remains  but  one  test  of  the  aesthetic  value  of  a  work  of  plastic  art, 
but  one  approach  to  its  understanding  and  appreciation,  but  one  way  in 
which  it  can  communicate  its  most  profound  significance.  Once  this  has 
been  established  the  observer  will  no  longer  be  disturbed  that  at  one  time 
the  artist  may  be  interested  in  the  relation  of  straight  lines  to  curved,  at 
another  in  the  relation  of  yellow  to  blue  or  at  another  in  the  surface  of 
brass  to  that  of  wood.  One,  two  or  three  dimensional  space,  color,  light  and 
dark,  dynamic  power,  gravitation  or  magnetic  forces,  the  frictional  re- 
sistance of  surfaces  and  their  absorptive  qualities,  all  qualities  capable  of 
visual  communication,  are  material  for  the  plastic  artist;  and  he  is  free 
to  use  as  many  or  as  few  as  at  the  moment  concern  him.  To  oppose  or 
relate  these  so  as  to  communicate  his  sensations  of  some  particular  mani- 
festation of  cosmic  order — this  I  believe  to  be  the  business  of  the  artist. 

Charles  Sheeler, 


WHAT  one  picks  up  in  the  course  of  years  by  contact  with  the  world 
must  in  time  incrust  itself  on  one's  personality.    It  stamps  a 
man  with  the  mark  of  his  time.   Yet  it  is,  after  all,  only  a  dress 
put  on  a  man's  own  nature.   But  if  there  be  a  personality  at  the  core  then 
it  will  mould  the  dress  to  its  own  forms  and  show  its  humanity  beneath  it. 

In  speaking  of  my  art,  I  am  referring  to  something  that  is  beneath  its 
dress,  beneath  objectivity,  beneath  abstraction,  beneath  organization.  I 
am  conscious  of  a  personal  relation  to  the  things  which  I  make  the  objects 
of  my  art.  Out  of  this  personal  relation  comes  the  feeling  which  I  am 
trying  to  express  graphically.  I  do  not  avoid  objectivity  nor  seek  subjec- 
tivity, but  try  to  find  an  equivalent  for  whatever  is  the  effect  of  my  re- 
lation to  a  thing,  or  to  a  part  of  a  thing,  or  to  an  afterthought  of  it.  I 
am  seeking  to  attune  my  art  to  what  I  feel  to  be  the  keynote  of  an  experi- 
ence. If  it  brings  to  me  a  harmonious  sensation,  I  then  try  to  find  the 
concrete  elements  that  are  likely  to  record  the  sensation  in  visual  forms,  in 
the  medium  of  lines,  of  color  shapes,  of  space  division.  When  the  line 
and  color  are  sensitized,  they  seem  to  be  alive  with  the  rhythm  which  I  felt 
in  the  thing  that  stimulated  my  imagination  and  my  expression.  If  my  art 
is  true  to  its  purpose,  then  it  should  convey  to  me  in  graphic  terms  the 
feeling  which  I  received  in  imaginative  terms.  That  is  as  far  as  the  form 
of  my  expression  is  involved. 

As  to  its  content,  it  should  satisfy  my  need  of  creating  a  record  of  an 
experience. 

A,  Walkowitz, 


NEW  YORK 


A.  WALKOWITZ 


IT  is  the  inner  spirit  of  things  that  I  seek  to  express,  the  essential  rela- 
tion of  forms  and  colors  to  universal  things.    Each  form  and  color 
has  a  spiritual  significance  to  me,  and  I  try  to  combine  those  forms  and 
colors  within  my  space  to  express  that  inner  feeling  which  something  in 
nature  or  life  has  given  me. 

The  moment  I  place  one  line  or  color  upon  my  canvas,  that  moment  I 
feel  the  need  of  other  lines  and  colors  to  express  the  inner  rhythm.  I  am 
organizing  a  new  world  in  which  each  form  and  color  exists  and  lives  only 
in  so  far  as  it  has  a  meaning  in  relation  to  every  other  form  and  color  in 
that  space. 

In  the  spring  one  feels  the  freshness  of  young  growing  things,  the 
ascending  stream  of  life,  the  expanding  of  leaves  and  trees,  the  spirit  and 
passions  in  the  lives  and  volumes  of  rolling  hills.  All  these  are  wonderful 
forms  that  act  and  react  upon  each  other  like  sounds  from  a  violin.  I  see 
the  young  child  and  its  mother,  I  see  the  flowers,  the  birds,  the  young  calf 
born  in  the  field.  I  see  the  young  calf  prancing  and  feel  the  wild  blood 
rushing  through  his  veins.  Then  again,  it  is  the  strangeness  of  mountains, 
their  bigness  and  solemnness  and  depth,  their  height,  and  the  strange  light 
upon  them.  I  go  into  a  farm  house;  the  people  sit  silently  around  the 
room,  a  girl  picks  foolish  tunes  from  a  zither,  the  old  feeble-minded  grand- 
father wanders  from  window  to  window  asking  for  the  sun.  And  in  all 
these  things  there  is  a  bigger  meaning,  a  certain  great  relation  to  the  moun- 
tains and  to  the  primary  significance  of  life.  One  feels  the  relation  of  the 
forms  of  birds,  flowers,  animals,  trees,  of  everything  that  grows  and 
breathes  to  each  other  and  to  the  earth  and  sky. 

This  I  get  from  the  world  about  me,  and  this  I  seek  to  give  back  again 
through  my  pictures. 

William  Zorach, 


SPRING  WILLIAM  20RACH 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BOOKS 

Bell,  Clive.  Art.   Frederick  A.  Stokes,  Pub. 

Wright,  Willard  Huntington.  Modern  Painting:  Its  Tendency  and  Meaning,  John 
Lane,  Pub. 

ARTICLES 

Aisen,  Maurice.  The  Latest  Evolution  in  Art.  Camera  Work  (Special  Number), 
June,  1913. 

Brinton,  Christian.  Evolution,  Not  Revolution,  in  Art.  International  Studio,  Apr., 
1913- 

Brinton,  Christian.  The  Modern  Spirit  in  Contemporary  Painting.  Introductory 
essay  in  Impressions  of  the  Art  at  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition.  John 
Lane,  Pub. 

Bluemner,  Oscar.  Some  Plain  Sense  on  the  Modern  Art  Movement.   Camera  Work 

(Special  Number),  June,  1913. 
Bluemner,  Oscar.   Walkovjitz.   Camera  Work,  No.  44,  Oct.,  1913. 
Buffet,  Gabriele.   Modern  Art  and  the  Public.    Camera  Work  (Special  Number), 

June,  1913. 

Caffin,  Charles  H.  Henri  Matisse  and  Isadore  Duncan.  Camera  Work,  No.  25, 
Jan.,  1909. 

Caffin,  Charles  H.    Maurer  and  Marin  at  the  Photo-Secession  Gallery.  Camera 

Work,  No.  27,  July,  1909. 
Caffin,  Charles  H.    The  Neiv  Thought  Which  Is  Old.   Camera  Work,  No.  31,  July, 

1910. 

Caffin,  Charles  H.    A  Note  on  Paul  Cezanne.   Camera  Work,  Nos.  34  and  35,  19H. 
De  Zayas,  Marius.   Modern  Art — Theories  and  Representation.    Camera  Work, 
No.  44,  Oct.,  191 3. 

De  Zayas,  Marius.    The  Neiv  Art  in  Paris.   Camera  Work,  Nos.  34  and  35,  1911. 

Also  The  Forum,  Feb.,  1911. 
De  Zayas,  Marius.    Pablo  Picasso.    Camera  Work,  Nos.  34  and  35,  1911. 
De  Zayas,  Marius.    Photography.    Camera  Work,  No.  41,  Jan.,  1913. 
De  Zayas,  Marius.    A  Study  of  the  Modern  Evolution  of  Plastic  Art.    (With  Paul 

B.  Haviland.)    "291,"  1913. 
De  Zayas,  Marius.    The  Sun  Has  Set.   Camera  Work,  No.  39,  July,  1912. 
Haviland,  Paul  B.  A  Study  of  the  Modern  Evolution  of  Plastic  Art.  (With  Marius 

De  Zayas.)    Camera  Work,  No.  39,  July,  1912. 
Weber,  Max.   The  Fourth  Dimension  from  a  Plastic  Point  of  Vievj.   Camera  Work, 

No.  31,  July,  1 9 10. 

Weichsel,  John.    Artists  and  Others.   Camera  Work,  No.  46,  Apr.,  19 14. 
Weichsel,  John.    Cosmism  and  Amorphism.    Camera  Work,  Nos.  42  and  43,  July, 

77 


78 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Weichsel,  John.    Rampant  Zettgest.    Camera  Work,  No.  44,  Oct.,  191 3. 


Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 
1916. 

Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 

Feb.,  191 6. 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington, 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 

1914. 

Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 

The  Forum,  Dec,  191 5. 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 
Wright,  Willard  Huntington. 

Studio,  Mar.,  1916. 


An  Abundance  of  Modern  Art.   The  Forum,  Mar., 

The  Msthetic  Struggle  in  America.    The  Forum, 

Art,  Promise,  and  Failure.   The  Forum,  Jan.,  1916. 

Cezanne.   The  Forum,  July,  191 5. 

Impressionism  to  Synchromism.    The  Forum,  Dec, 

Modern  American  Painters — and  Winsloio  Homer. 

Modern  Painting.    Reedy's  Mirror,  Aug.  20,  1915. 
Paul  Cezanne.    International  Studio,  Feb.,  191 6. 
Synchromism.    International  Studio,  Oct.,  1915. 
The  Water-Colours  of  John  Marin.  International 


N.  E.  MONTROSS 

lEaply  Chinese  M 

Montross  Gallery 

550  Fiftk  Avenue  New  York,  N.  Y. 

(Above  45tli  Street) 


Paintings  by 

Ben  Benn,  Benton,  Berlin,  Demuth,  Dickinson,  Fisk, 
Glackens,  Halpert,  Hartley,  Kent,  Lawson, 
Lever,  Mager,  Manigault,  Marin,  Maurer, 
McFee,  Miller,  Nordfeldt,  Prendergast, 
Man  Ray,  Russell,  Walkowitz, 
Wortman,  Macdonald- Wright, 
M.  Zorach,  W.  Zorach 

Tke  Daniel  Gallery 

2  West  47tli  Street 


/KS  2i  unit  of  the  public,  an  art  buyer,  an  art 
^^^j^  student  and  one  interested  in  the  art  develop- 
ment of  the  country,  I  ask  you,  Mr.  Wright, 
Dr.  Brinton,  Mr.  Stieglitz,  Dr.  Weichsel,  Mr.  Nelson 
and  Mr.  Henri,  to  qualify  for  the  position  you  have 
assumed  and  to  answer  the  following  questions — 

Why  are  these  two  hundred  paintings  "the  very  best 
examples  of  modern  American  art''? 

Why  are  they  American,  what  element  or  elements, 
quality  or  qualities,  do  they  possess  that  make  them 
American  ? 

What  is  the  difference  between  '^modern  American 
art"  and  "modern  European  art"? 

Why  "turn  public  attention  for  the  moment  from 
modern  European  art"? 

Why  not  turn  public  attention  to  art? 

Do  you  mean  "by  guaranteeing,  as  it  were,  the 
authenticity  and  conscientiousness  of  the  paintings 
shown"  that  you  guarantee  them  as  works  of  art? 

Will  you  really  "make  the  buyer  feel  secure"  by 
guaranteeing  the  market  value  of  these  paintings? 

At  the  end  of  five  years  will  these  two  hundred 
paintings  or  any  part  of  them  be  worth  the  price  to 
you  that  is  being  asked  for  them  to-day,  and  will  you 
legally  guarantee  it? 

I  challenge  all  of  you  and  each  of  you  to  back  up 
your  "critical  selection"  with  proof. 


WASHINGTON  SQUARE  GALLERY, 
per  R.  J.  CoADY. 


MODERN  GALLERY 

500  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 

Corner  42nd  Street,  Mezzanine  Floor 


Paintings  and  Sculpture 
ty  tke  leaders  of  tke 
"Mod  ern  Art  movement 

Cezanne,  Van  Gogk,  Picasso, 
Picatia,  Braque,  Rivera,  Brancusi 


AFRICAN     NEGRO  ART 


Established.  1873  GEO.  F.  OF  7484  Murray  Hill 
274  MADISON  AVENUE,  bet.  39th  and  40th  Sts.,  NEW  YORK 

(Formerly  at  3  East  28th  Street) 


PICTURE  FRAMER 


The  Mounting  of  Large  Architectural  Drawings  and  Stretching 
of  Parchment  Diplomas  and  Old  Manuscripts  a  Specialty 


REFRAMING.  REGILDING,  REPAIRING 
AND  PACKING 


Engravings  Bleached,  Oil  Paintings  Relined,  Cleaned  and  Varnished 
Plate  Glass  Tops  for  Tables,  Desks,  etc. 


Modern  Painting:  Its  Tendency 
and  Meaning 

By  Willard  Huntington  Wright.  With  four  color  plates  and  24  illustrations  in  half-tone. 

"Modern  Painting  is  a  solid,  sincere  and  brilliant  book;  the  best  of  its  kind  I  have  thus  far  read 
in  English."  —James  Euneker. 

"The  appearance  of  Modern  Painting  lifts  art  criticism  in  the  United  States  out  of  its  old  slough 
of  platitude-monging  and  sentimentalizing."  — H.  L.  Mencken  in  "Smart  Set." 

"Willard  Huntington  Wright,  in  his  book,  Modern  Painting,  comes  nearer  to  revealing  for  us 
the  anatomy  of  art  and  its  spirit,  too,  than  any  writer  I  have  ever  read." 

— William  Marion  Reedy  in  "The  Mirror 
Octavo  Price,  $2.50 

Impressions  of  the  Art  at  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition 

By  Christian  Brinton.  Profusely  illustrated  in  color  and  half-tone. 

This  series  of  impressions  by  Dr.  Brinton  constitutes  more  than  a  mere  account  of  the  Architecture, 
Paintings,  and  Sculpture  seen  at  the  San  Francisco  and  San  Diego  Expositions.  They  form  rather  a 
critical  survey  of  modern  American  and  European  art. 

In  this  volume  Dr.  Brinton  does  not  exclusively  confine  himself  to  individual  artists,  but  also  treats 
of  the  contemporary  art  movements  in  France,  Italy,  Holland,  Hungary,  Portugal,  the  Argentine,  the 
three  Scandinavian  kingdoms,  and  the  United  States. 

A  special  feature,  and  one  which  lends  additional  weight  and  authority  to  the  book,  is  the  inclusion 
of  a  complete  Bibliography  of  books  and  articles  relating  to  the  art  and  architecture  of  the  two 
Expositions.    There  is  also  a  comprehensive  and  carefully  prepared  Index  of  Artists. 

Large  Grtavo  Price,  $.3.00 

JOHN    LANE    COMPANY,    Publishers,     NEW  YORK 


THE  articles  by  Willard  Huntington  Wright,  which  appear  each  month  in 
The  Forum,  are  the  first  constructive,  purely  aesthetic  art  criticisms  to 
appear  in  America.  Mr.  Wright's  aesthetic  rationale  is  neither  personal  nor 
merely  scholastic;  it  is  founded  on  definite  knowledge  of  emotional  apperceptions 
and  reactions,  and  adheres  to  the  facts  recorded  by  the  leading  European  scientists 
and  psychologists  who  have  made  a  profound  study  of  subtle  and  complex  problems 
of  aesthetics. 

Mr.  Wright's  criticisms  mean  more  than  mere  transient  records  and  opinions. 
They  possess  a  philosophic  and  educational  appeal  which  is  stimulating  and 
interesting  even  to  those  not  particularly  concerned  with  painting. 

Mr.  Wright  is  neither  a  teacher  nor  a  detractor.  You  will  not  be  concerned 
as  to  whether  you  personally  agree  or  disagree  with  him.  But  you  will  be  stimulated. 
You  will  be  set  thinking.  You  will  find  that  there  are  more  possibilities  of  aesthetic 
enjoyment  than  you  are  aware  of.  You  will  have  new  viewpoints  opened  up 
to  you. 

Every  month  he  contributes  a  long  article  to  The  Forum  dealing  with  the  im- 
portant current  activities  in  the  field  of  art.  If  you  have  not  followed  these 
articles  you  will  find  it  to  your  interest  and  benefit  to  begin  at  once.  A  limited 
number  of  recent  back  issues  containing  Mr.  Wright's  criticisms  may  still  be  obtained. 

The  price  is  25  cents  a  copy;  $2.50  a  year.       A  three  months  trial  subscription  for  50  cents. 


MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 


Publisher,  NEW  YORK 


GETTY  RESEARCH  INSTITUTE 


3  3125  01096  5461 


